I've officially resigned as a school board trustee. As with almost all endings and beginnings, it comes with mixed feelings. As soon as I hit send on the email, I felt like, okay now I've finally retired. But I feel horrible for disappointing people who helped me win and for leaving people in the lurch, and at the same time I'm hopeful that someone much better will come along to take up the slack. I didn't leave much slack to take up!
After my initial motion to encourage masks was painstakingly crafted and passed, I feel like I just tagged along during board meetings, which is an uncomfortable place to be for someone with tons of energy and a strong work ethic. I did push to change the CO2 monitor wording. It was passed with a line about waiting for pre-Covid ventilation levels before starting, which might never happen. I pointed that out but was told I shouldn't be the one to put the motion forward, so I was the seconder. On the Special Education committee, I helped revamp their info on the website. I also, through emails, balanced the terms in the secondary calendar for next year. They had one at 42 days and another at 46, and I explained how to fix it, which also changed midterm exam days to Thurs/Fri instead of Wed/Thurs, so they attach to the weekend instead of making everyone show up for a stray Friday in which not much gets done. I'm a behind the scenes type of worker.
I announced my resignation in the middle of April, and was told to think about it, then here's the email I sent to the chair on May 1st, but then it was still all kept confidential for another week:
I believe that I've done all I can with respect to keeping kids safer at school regarding Covid, which is the issue I campaigned on. While I value the experience of working with so many lovely people, all of whom clearly care about children despite different views and approaches, I find the bureaucratic system more difficult to navigate than I expected. I've also discovered my own limitations, that I'm personally not the best fit for a position that regulates how we speak and how much we can say. I've been raised to never complain without a solution to offer, but many solutions are considered operational and therefore not my place to propose. Finally, I feel regretful at the many events and conferences I've declined due to health concerns now that Covid mitigations have been removed. I sincerely hoped to be of greater service and am frustrated by how little I feel I'm able to do in this role. I wish you all the best in your continued work to improve the educational experiences for the next generation.
I sent that with the expectation that it would be shared with others, but then it wasn't, and I was asked to craft something to share, and I said that was it, so obvious it wasn't right, but I have no idea what is right, and that's the whole problem with me being in this role. I haven't been able to figure out how to tell the right thing to say or do! Once again, I'm missing something that everyone else seems to have.
The board release from the comms department parred it down to this,
"'It has been an honour to represent Waterloo-Wilmot. I wish the trustees and staff the best in their continued work to improve the education experiences for the next generation.' An inability to fully participate due to health concerns was cited as her reason for resigning."
which caused many friends and family members to call asking if I'm okay! The release used some of the same words I said, but the context changed significantly.
That pretty much says it all, and yet, of course, I'm going to continue rambling on and on about it!
Seneca describes an example of what waste of time looks like as, "political ambition, which always hangs on the judgment of others." I think he's on to something although ambition is different than action. He advises us to "retire to those pursuits that are calmer, safer, and more important . . . . much that is worth studying awaits you: the love and practice of the virtues." After retiring, I pursued being a trustee and a student, and I'm really made for studying how the brain works. This job wasn't a good fit for me in that it collided with my many limitations while suppressing my talents, expected tolerance with less than Davos-safe scenarios for kids, and provoked heaps of hate from high public expectations coupled with minimal power to actually change anything.
I had an inaccurate expectation that I could somehow bring in new ideas. The board has experts for that, and it's above my station to make suggestions. I have a hard time with that one! I understand the governance/operations divide but didn't expect those boundaries to be so unwavering (especially since they sometimes do waver). And I didn't realize that much of the role seems to exist to take the pressure off principals as trustees weigh in on expulsion hearings and early-leaving hearings (when kids leave school permanently or need time off to recalibrate).
I also thought, as an autistic person, that the rules would work in my favour. I relish clear regulations, but it's all a bit slipperier than I expected, and I'm really bad at figuring out when exceptions are permitted. I'm great at speaking in front of people but struggle when people talk at once, so the back and forth discussions in my classroom, when everyone raises a hand to speak, are my forte. But I overlooked that when it's our turn to speak at meetings, we can't just openly speak about our concerns with something said; we often can only ask questions of clarification. I really couldn't manage to do that at all - even with significant thought while pacing my kitchen afterwards. Some trustees throw out comments first before adding in a question, and sometimes they're called on it and sometimes not. I can't not follow the rules, so the variable nature of the requirements threw me for a loop.
A few fellow trustees have told me I'm being too hard on myself for not getting my head around how to turn every comment into a question for clarification as quickly as they are, but I see it in a more positive light: Good for me for recognizing my limitations and for not continuing in a role that is so clearly beyond me! Quitting things is only possible with good self-awareness and boundaries. It's best for everyone to know when to leave.
When I was campaigning for the position, every meeting was virtual, and I knew we'd be meeting in person once I started, but I didn't realize we'd be expected to eat meals together, unmasked, without even a HEPA filter in the room or any other mitigations in place. They went from full protection to absolutely none. I opted to remain virtual as much as possible, and everyone was very kind and accommodating in this regard, but it's still often difficult or at least awkward. The actual last straw for me was being sent an email telling trustees to sign up for three secondary school commencements. My daughter and I didn't attend her graduation, thinking it unwise to be in a room packed with mostly unmasked people, so I couldn't see myself attending other graduations. I've missed every brunch and workshop and conference due to a lack of mitigations in place, and I'm not visiting schools like I feel I should be. It's not just my own health that concerns me, but that, for me, watching a room full of kids without masks is like watching children playing with grenades. I know the potential damage coming and can't just stand by to let it happen. I'd have the same feeling seeing a passing car on the 401 full of kids not bucked in, except in that case at least I could pull over and report it. Someone less Covid cautious will be able to make more connections with the public.
It feels like we're largely ignoring Covid in schools now, and I have no ability to affect that further. That CO2 pilot program that was approved over a year ago will take almost another year before there's a report, which might be used to suggest we provide more ventilation, which could take another year or so to implement. Or it might show median levels at 1,000 ppm, and a report could be found that suggests that's perfectly acceptable, and nothing will be done. Who knows! I tried to make sure the report must include a range as well as a median before I left, but trustees didn't seem to understand why that might be vitally important -- they might average to 500 ppm, but regularly reach over 2,000 ppm. We don't appear to have enough tech staff to figure out how to automatically post regular absences above a pre-Covid baseline the way some boards do, and we can't ask school staff to do it manually, so parents don't have all the tools they need to make their own risk assessments. Teachers and students can't even see the monitors in those three schools because they're only seen by the board office. Monitors should be visible everywhere! The educational component that was part of the motion that passed in November (but I couldn't advise on because that would be overstepping my role) appears to have just been posters to encourage masks and some social media announcements that ended in March. That's great and all, but I had hoped to really educate staff and students on what Covid is, how it spreads, how prevalent it is, and how it can be prevented. I even made posters explaining it (front and back) and outlined the basic here that everyone should know, but, again, that's not my place.
We have HEPA units in schools, but we can't ask principals - or anyone, apparently - to let us know where they are or how many units are actually in classrooms in those schools. I've asked some teacher friends who report NO units in their classrooms or any nearby, so, in at least one school, they seem to be in department offices and the library and staff room instead of classrooms. We can't ever have Corsi-Rosenthal boxes because they don't come with a post-build CSA approval sticker to ward off insurance claims if there's a fire. The fact that some engineers say that shouldn't matter doesn't change the fact that the board's insurance provider says it does. And there's no means to check if any HEPA units are ever actually on during class time, much less on the highest setting. I get sent photos of HEPA units unplugged and shoved in a corner or behind a bookcase because they're often too loud to be feasibly used in a classroom. Monday night's delegates made sure that made the news! Without a means to ensure appropriate usage, buying all those HEPAs was a colossal waste of money. It might be helped if every single staff member, including every classroom teacher, were made to really understand that Covid is still a significant danger to the well-being of staff and students and that filtering the air is vital when so many don't wear N95s in school. But that's not happening either. Our only hope right now is the knowledge that the current variant gaining top position, Arcturus, affects the eyes in a very dramatic and visible way which might be enough to get masks back in place for a bit--at a cost to the kids who get it first. Also consider some fashionable goggles to go with the mask!
ETA: In June the staff clarified that the unplugged HEPAs are likely due to them removing them as they upgrade ventilation, since they're no longer necessary, as if ventilation and filtration are the same thing, and there's no way for people to know which HEPAs are surplus, so, basically, stop calling the board when you see one unplugged!!
A BIT ABOUT ALL THE HATE
I don't have whatever Ottawa-Carleton Trustee Nili Kaplan-Myrth has that enables her to function amid multiple serious death threats. I get a bit unnerved by even just this kind of thing:
I'd love to know how I might profit from encouraging masks!!
If it were just this trolling, and I were able to make an impact or at least not also be hated by the pro-mask side accusing me of colluding with the enemy when I explain why it is the way it is, then I could maybe tolerate it all and stick it out. But the rewards are few and the punishment absolutely relentless.
Every job interview I've ever had involved a question about my ability to handle being yelled at and sworn at. I worked for a huge insurance company answering phones from frustrated, angry, and desperate people who were unable to work and hadn't gotten a cheque from us because we hadn't yet received their latest update from their doctor, required at regular intervals, necessitating they find a way to make it to the doctor's office and pay for this form that just says they continue to be unable to do things like take two busses to get across town to go pick up a form they can't afford. Then my first teaching job was in the "Basic" program with some hard to serve students, and in my interview I was asked if I was okay with swearing and yelling while working with kids largely frustrated from not understanding the work and/or dealing with difficult events in their lives. (Swearing and yelling from the kids, not from me!) They didn't want half the class in the office every day because of swears. No problem! I was totally up for that challenge!
Then in my role as trustee, when asking around about the job, people warned me I had to be okay with being yelled at and sworn at and/or about. The public is frustrated and angry about how their kids are being taught in school. Except that's not really it. A lot of it is anger about Covid existing, which translates into anger at masks being encouraged as well as masks not being mandated and HEPAs not being on or being in the room at all and lockdowns having happened ever. (Schools were remote from March to June 2020 then January to mid-February and mid-April to June 2021, but that was mainly a provincial decision). The fact that there's about as much hate coming my way from both sides on that motion six months ago shows it was actually an excellent compromise, right?! It also means I'm being slammed by people I'm trying to fight for, sometimes for being too cowardly to propose a mandate, but often just for being the bearer of bad news, which I find far more difficult to take than I expected. At least those insurance claimants understood that there was nothing I could do to change the system. Many parents think that, as a trustee, I actually have significant power on this issue, and they're furious I won't actually do something!!
I know, when you feed the birds they reward you with droppings, but still.
A lot of the anger we hear is also abject fear about programs suddenly ending, like ISP, which is absolutely necessary for some kids. And it's worry about so much traffic on the way to school. And it's annoyance around kids not being allowed to go to the school that their siblings and neighbours go to because there has to be a line somewhere. And it's exasperation at a conundrum around what can possibly be taught in French without compromising learning the subject content: definitely not math or science, and likely not music either, but then what? And lots of parents don't like their school's celebrations of holidays or graduation (which is a school issue, not a board issue). A few tenacious parents are outraged about books allowed and what is being taught to kids (which is a provincial issue, not a board issue), sometimes hoping to scrutinize lesson plans and have a level of control in classrooms that would make it impossible to teach. Some also want a level of control at board meetings that seems unreasonable:
Some people think elected officials have to do whatever they say, forgetting that their facebook group might represent relatively few people out of a couple hundred thousand constituents. Trustees really do listen to all parents but don't blindly heed their advice.
Most frustrating to me, as might be imagined: I'm at an absolute loss as to what will possibly help people to acknowledge that Covid is still running wild and to remember that some effects of Covid are forever when our school board won't further educate staff and students on how it works because maybe they also think it's over or because maybe they did due diligence and don't have to do more, and/or maybe because it might annoy too many people who want to forget it's even happening. Brain fog is brain damage! A tipping point of people are making light of a disease that's disabling the population. Check out Covid hospitalizations in Canada from April 2020 to April 2023 below; the red line is current hospitalization levels as a comparative. Anyone who thinks the pandemic ended isn't carefully looking at the data.
I'm still mad that back before we had vaccinations, back in September 2020, we had students in schools masked for four hours/day, but instead of teaching for the morning and having them go home for lunch, the entire school had to have a snack at 10 in the morning because it's too harmful to go almost four hours without food, and kids weren't allowed to leave the room during the unmasking. I started writing letters to trustees to try to understand the reasoning behind taking off masks for 45 minutes each day. I got nowhere. As a teacher, I was told I didn't have to be in the room during the nutrition break as if I was only worried about myself (and as if the virus doesn't linger in the room for hours). Somehow I thought it would be different as a trustee, that I could actually convince the board when their rules don't make sense, that I would have some sway. Instead I just found myself face-to-face with all the system-based barriers that provoke inaction.
Finally, I'm really not okay with all this yelling and swearing anymore. I've tolerated enough for forty years of employment, and now I'm done. I didn't expect people to go back over a decade into my social media to jump on some random retweet: any opinion I've ever had apparently proves a bias on an issue! Then there's the claim that every time I don't criticize a comment from a trustee in another board, I'm tacitly agreeing with them, and people will be coming for me for that! It's not just people upset with how I vote on an issue that are showing up in my mentions or phoning me, but often people seemingly angry at my very existence to the point of being a little frightening. They don't try to convince me why we shouldn't encourage masks, but why I need to be shut up permanently!
And it's too difficult to console so many beleaguered parents terrified of the effects of Covid when there appears to be no solutions and no way to help besides passing on concerns to an employee of the board who might not even think it's necessary to wear a mask indoors anymore. That's absolutely heartbreaking. Trustees are often not privy to information beyond what the public has heard, and sometimes, like with the ISP program cancellation, we don't know anything about it until parents start to complain. I find it all a bit embarrassing to be so continuously ill-prepared. So DO complain!! Parents can sometimes actually make a difference. It's worth a shot!
Cowardly, lazy, inept, can't hack it, arrogant, a disappointment? Sure. Except, I'm not actually lazy; I just still can't figure out how to have an effect on anything. I've been working really hard spinning my wheels in place for six months!! Caring a ton and wanting to create a better education system is worth squat if you can't figure out how to strategize and control the narrative and all that jazz. It's an exercise in futility. Understanding how to craft argumentation rebuttals is less useful than being good at quick comebacks. Lengthy discussions where everyone works together to get to the bottom of an issue don't really exist in this role, and brevity is clearly not in my wheelhouse!
I tried to lay low online and ignore comments from haters after my resignation was announced, but I caught sight of this:
The haters started the day my official trustee picture was posted - in a mask - and continued to the very end. While a few supporters called and messaged personally, the haters are much more public. For the record, I attended every meeting, was never absent or even late, but I often attended remotely since trustees just have to attend three board meetings/year in person. On top of being concerned with the number unmasked in the room and being autistic, I'm also night blind, so require rides back and forth after dark and sometimes a bit of help getting to the door. Some might chide me for even trying to take this on, but I think people with any form of disability should be encouraged to participate in all levels of society. But it's difficult. I was also on the Special Education Advisory Committee, Discipline Committee, Student Program Review Committee, and I never missed any of those meetings either. Most of this job is off camera. I was officially on the Mental Health and Addiction Committee too, but that one never got up and running despite my many emails to the board staff member in charge. It's so important, and right up my alley, but it's just one more thing on my list of things that I couldn't make happen.
What now? A by-election is way too expensive, so I imagine the board will likely appoint a qualified person (see 4.4.3). There will likely be some type of application process, so if you think you're up for the task and live anywhere in Waterloo Region (not just Waterloo/Wilmot), this route is way easier and cheaper than campaigning! I hate that my leaving causes problems for people; I hate to be such a bother, but it'll all be sorted out soon enough.
I wish nothing but the best for the trustees willing to manage this role and who do it with such grace and wisdom and patience.
And if we really want to improve mental health issues in our students, we might start by reducing the level of illness kids are experiencing and bringing home to their families. Just a thought.
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