Why Ranked Ballots Make Sense

...and we can't act as if they were ranked after the fact!

I believe that WRDSB has a committee formed to determine the process to appoint two new trustees. I've been actively avoiding following the news on all this, but I do want to respond to the suggesting floating around that an appointment is undemocratic. 

Voting is typically the most democratic method, but a byelection is costly (about half a mill!!), and a July election for just two trustees (or three trustees including one for the WCDSB) will likely be poorly attended. The municipal election last October just provoked about 25% of the voters to the polls. We'd be lucky if we got even half that number for just a trustee election and in the summer. Does 10% of the populace in attendance make for a solid democratic decision?? Is it really much of a democratic system anymore if nobody cares to vote despite being offered the chance? 

The other option the trustees voted down, to just choose the next candidate on the voters list from last fall, doesn't seem remotely democratic to me because it wasn't originally set up as a ranked ballot where people explicitly chose their fourth option (after the three elected). 

To illustrate the problem with taking the next person on the list, let's assume people just voted for one person for simplicity's sake. If 70% of people pick person A, and 5% each choose person B, C, D, E, and then 5.1% choose person F, it's clear that person F isn't really the democratically elected second choice despite getting the second highest percentage of votes. Right? It's one reason why at least all municipal elections should be by ranked ballot.

Resignation

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! 

OPSBA Conference in the Time of Covid

I'm missing my first trustee conference this weekend because there are no Covid mitigations in effect. I called to ask about it, and they're following the Ontario protocol, which is basically nothing. It's a full weekend at a hotel eating together, and I suspect that very few will be masked. Meeting people of a similar bent, being able to discuss the benefits and pitfalls of taking on this role, and being recharged by one another is something I normally relish. But it's not safe enough for me. They also decided not to livestream because it would be too costly, so I'll just hear about it second-hand. But Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth went and responded to a speaker with this concern about Covid. (I have no idea what the general topic was or what was said just prior to elicit this, and this is tidied up a bit from the recording at the link): 

On Argumentation and Straddling the Middle

At the school board meeting Monday night (video here, starting at 1:23:50 for over an hour), an open letter the board recently sent out was discussed. I said nothing because everything had already been said by everyone, and I didn't think it necessary to just be one more to add my thanks. The letter is well-written, clear, and well-supported with links to all necessary documentation. Last night, our director, associate director, and many trustees gave beautiful speeches about inclusivity, and I was happy that the board took such a strong and decisive stance on the issue. 

Year in Review

I don't normally do a year in review, but his was my most tumultuous year in decades. It's right up there with the year I dropped out of high school and moved in with my sister in Ottawa on a whim, and the year I moved six times mainly by bicycle. This year, I went from 31 years at the same job in the same building, doing more or less the same thing, to .... not that. And my oldest moved out to Guelph, with the middle one likely to follow, which is also a big change.  

Evidence on Both Sides

A school board in Winnipeg passed a motion to strongly recommend masking at school to protect from SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses currently affecting kids. Many of the comments on that post call for a full mandate, and one called out trustees for not shutting down an anti-science delegate at their meeting. Can you imagine!?!

Here's the thing: They can't be shut down. 

Delegates get ten full minutes provided they don't override any human rights codes or name names when they, for instance, insist that any trustee wearing a mask in their bio necessarily indicates they are unable to be open-minded. A nameless trustee was also claimed to have said that parents suck, and, at the end of the meeting, that same trustee was called disgusting. 

They mean me!! 

Everyone likes to start with a classic ad hominem argument to indicate that since the person advocating for masks is bad, therefore masks must be bad. 

On that profile photo (one of these things is not like the other): It happened so quickly that it actually didn't occur to me to take off my mask. I had just walked into the board room for the first time ever, trying to orient myself, and was immediately ushered into another room for a photo, then ushered back. My necklace is askew and the clasp is showing, which wouldn't have happened if I was thinking about how I looked! That being said, I wouldn't have taken my mask off anyway, had I the wherewithal to have considered it, because I know the risks of having a mask off even for a few minutes in a room indoors, especially in such a small room with others unmasked. After the fact, when that photo was mentioned repeatedly in tweets, DMs, and emails about what a monster I am for creating fear in the hearts of children, I owned it, tweeting out that I stand in solidarity with any students who are worried about feeling weird for keeping their mask on for a photo. 

The ironic part of this is that this same group of people openly insulting me for wearing a mask has assured me that we don't need to encourage kids to wear masks in class because no students are bullied or harassed for wearing masks. Nobody would harass anyone for wearing a mask! I must be imagining things or fabricating the parents who contacted me about their kids being made to feel so comfortable about their mask that they take them off at school despite their family's decision to continue masking. 

Do Masks Harm Children?

There's some shock and outrage that I'd suggest encouraging masks in class to curb the spread of the three-plus viruses inundating pediatric wards in hospitals right now. Some have accused me of wanting masks in order to virtue signal or to feed my ego, but it's actually just about saving the health and lives of children.

I'm hearing that some think masks are completely ineffective at preventing illness and cause learning loss. Let's take a Pascal's wager approach to this:

• If I'm completely wrong, and masks do significantly affect learning loss and aren't at all effective against a virus, and we do encourage them in class, then it will be inconvenient, and some kids might need to ask for extra help or, at the very worst, take an extra year to graduate. 
• If this group of parents (or random people, some from the U.S.) are wrong, however, and masks are effective against the virus, but we don't encourage anyone to wear them, then some kids might die or become disabled by Long Covid, and other people might not be able to access a hospital because they're overflowing.

What we're seeing already, though, is many kids are suffering learning loss from being sick two or three times so far this term, sometimes for weeks at a time. A recent CBC article included an interview with a Cambridge dad about his son, 

"He's had the flu at least four times, which has had a 'detrimental impact' on his education. 'I think he's been at school three and a half, maybe four weeks total this year. He's definitely missed more time than there's been school. Every time our son goes back to school he catches something from someone and he's off for another week or two, sometimes longer. . . . There are some parents that are not able to keep their child home because they need to go to work."

Provincially, the rules still state that sick children can return to school if they don't have a fever and if symptoms have been improving for 24 hours, or 48 for intestinal symptoms. The province recognizes that children will likely still be contagious at that point, so they require masks for 10 days from the start of symptoms. Nobody is monitoring that this ten days of masking is happening, so it would really help if everyone just wore a mask as much as possible.

A Polite Request is NOT a Mandate.

 

A few parents are upset that I'm trying to "bring back masks" in schools. Some have threatened to take their kids out of our board if we force masks on them again. The motion I presented last Monday very carefully tried to assure people that I don't want to force kids to do anything they don't want to do, but I do want to help more kids, who want to wear a mask, feel like they're allowed to wear one. From what I've been hearing from tons of parents, their children won't mask in class because people bug them about it, or remind them they don't have to mask, sometimes even their teachers. 

The motion itself starts by acknowledging that a mandate won't work, and then my preamble went further to explain that this is a way to find a middle ground so there really will be a free choice to wear a mask or not. We need to do more to make staff and students really aware that we are following public health guidance, which STRONGLY recommends masking indoors. We're already officially encouraging masking, so I'm not asking for anything to change as much as I'm asking for us to do more. The encouragement isn't being heard in the classroom. 

We could start with better messaging. 

An Ask to Mask in Class

Here's a run-down of what it's like presenting a motion to request that students masks if they can, two weeks ago, and the final motion that was passed last night. It's been picked up by City News,  CTV News video, CTV News article, CBC News, and NewsTalk 1010. Some of the articles present it as if it's a done deal, but it still has to be ratified on Monday, and then it's in place officially next Tuesday. 

When writing a motion, trustees can suggest a goal (what to do - encourage masks routinely), but can't make operational suggestions (how to do it - a morning announcement asking to please mask, or maybe even a PSA contest!), not even as an example of how the goal might be reached, so it will be in the hands of the board and maybe individual schools to decide what it will look like in practice. The full motion and preamble is down below. 

On the Social Disease of Anger

The anger that escalated at a recent Ottawa-Carlton school board meeting when a trustee proposed and lost a motion to mandate masks, in a setting of generally polite discussion, makes it seem like this type of anger is new. But this video of the history of masks, and what we saw when we imposed smoking bans and seatbelts years ago, makes it clear that people have always been fired up by any new restriction. Masks may be even more enraging because they symbolize a danger and harm we'd all like to forget. 

But more than that, this type of anger that targeted the specific trustee with emails and phone calls that included vile sexist and racist comments and threats, is more reminiscent of GamerGate, when a few women dared to criticize some games and were brutally harassed online and doxed, provoking at least one to move. This Vox article explains what needs to be done to prevent these occurrences,  

It's crucial to understand how, when, and why an online mob is expressing outrage before you decide how to respond to it. Gamergate should have taught businesses that online mobs can and do look for excuses to be outraged, as a pretext to harass and abuse their targets. There's a difference between organic outrage that arises because an employee actually does something outrageous, and invented outrage that's an excuse to harass someone. . . . 2014 should have been the year the cultural conversation began to acknowledge how serious aggression toward women really is. It wasn't.

This understanding of the situation suggests that an outlet for anger is the point and that gaming was just a catalyst or merely the easiest avenue for the anger to seem remotely reasonable. It's like when a hungry or tired toddler is upset with a random toy until that inner irritation is resolved. The grade school version finds a scapegoat to unload on and then they discover the glee of having power over another. We need to resolve these inner irritations and the joy of domination before people become adults with a greater capacity to cause lasting harm.

Problems with IHRA

After receiving literally hundreds of emails on this topic, starting before I was even elected, I watched this excellent panel discussion tonight about IHRA presented by Independent Jewish Voices Canada, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and Ground UP Waterloo Region, and featuring Fitsum Areguy, Greg Bird, Jasmin Zine, Sheryl Nestel, Mark Ayyash, and Shatha AbuAhmad. 

IHRA is shorthand for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism. Here's some of what I heard and understood from it all so far:

The working definition says,

"Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities."

The concern with the definition involves contention with some of the illustrative examples of anti-semitism, for instance, "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." or "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis." 

Some of the examples provided (see more here) conflate a typical understanding of prejudice against a Jewish person with disagreement over actions taken by the Israeli government. 

What I've Learned So Far: My First 2 Weeks as a Trustee

The boardroom is smaller than it looks on camera, and cozier and everyone's very nice and welcoming. It doesn't feel as formal as it looks, so I started out a little less formal than I should have been. It's hard to remember all the "through the chair" things to say. They gave us two books on procedure (Roberts Rules), and I haven't opened either one yet. Something I knew to expect and that was entirely reinforced by this experience, though, is that the corporate secretaries or managers, the ones you've never heard of, run the show and keep everything organized and are an incredible resource and remarkably accommodating. 

When I first considered campaigning, I asked how much a trustee gets paid, and I was always given a range from about $6,000 to $25,000. It's a honorarium based on student numbers, so it has no benefits or any extras attached to it, and it changes a bit each years. But I wasn't sure if that would be a yearly lump sum dumped in my bank account without notice or what. I started Nov. 14th, and got my first pay on Dec. 2. It's $541.64, so I assume that's paid bi-weekly, and I imagine for 26 pays, for a total of $14,082.64. I was just emailed that my gross pay is $16,185.31 per year, so that sounds about right. Funny that nobody will be upfront about that! It's very much a part-time job. If I work twenty hours/week, which is likely, then I'll be making minimum wage. For comparison, a trustee takes home $240/week and a crossing guard makes $170/week; as a teacher, I took home $1,270 a week, and the associate directors - we have two of them now - make over $4,000/week. But, on top of my pay, I also get a small allowance for phone use (not sure how much yet), and mileage if I drive to to meetings, and free subscriptions to The Record, The Star, and The Globe and Mail. I already pay for a Star subscription, and I'll just keep that one myself.

On OCDSB's Mask Motion

The OCDSB motion to require masks in all schools but allow exemptions for anyone who finds masks to be a hardship was not passed tonight after a 6-6 tie. Both student trustees also opposed it, but their votes weren't counted in the official tally. Here are three arguments I heard from opposing voices, and my rebuttals: 

Telling people it's required but that they can avoid it by saying it's a hardship for them means it won't change anything. 

Although it was hard to watch concessions be made in the spirit of compromise and the original motion be whittled away bit by bit over two long evenings, it was worse to hear final arguments about it being too watered down to bother passing by the very people who chiseled away at it! Of course that was the plan. The idea of the exemptions was to take any enforcement off the plates of teachers and administrators, but people argued that it makes it no different than a strong recommendation. 

I believe it's not the case that everything will be the same if you require masks but allow people to remove them without penalty. We know that every little bit will help, and we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Sure people who are anti-masks will still not wear them, but I'm hearing from many parents with kids who want to mask, but don't want to be feel weird. If it's stated that they're required unless there's a hardship, then it makes masking the default, and those kids who want to mask will put them back on. In my own classes, almost all my students kept their masks on after the mandates were lifted last April because I told them the risks and the current data, and I asked them to keep them on if possible. That's all it took to get compliance from 95% of them. When the message is, "Masking isn't mandatory, but please respect people's choice to continue masking if they want to," that messaging leaves NOT masking as the default, and then kids feel uncomfortable wearing a mask. The message makes a huge difference even if there's no penalty for non-compliance.

A 12 Step Solution to Fix Healthcare

This thread is from Dr. Raghu Venugopal, an emergency physician in Toronto explaining how to fix healthcare in Ontario:

1. Declare a crisis

2. Scrap bill 124.

3. Give nursing and allied staff a raise.

4. School masking to reduce spread (plus cleaning hands and ventilation).

5. Get provincial health ministers to agree to federal data request to get available federal funding.

6. Spend surplus on health staff and structures, not highways, car sticker rebates, and waste.

7. Robustly invest in family health teams.

8. Supercharge hospital bed capacity (including ICU), which we hugely lack.

9. Bipartisan flu vaccine promotion now.

10. Fair paid sick days.

I could go on. But the Ford administration is going to do none of this, I am sorry to say, except I do note they promise to build hospital beds.

Lastly, it's about publicly funded health care:

11. Yes to non-profit surgical facilities.

12. Scrap for-profit nursing homes with increased mortality. Most hospitals are general, so children fight with elderly for beds. Healthier seniors means more pediatric beds.

So simple, and so not going to happen!! 

A trustee in OCDSB (Ottawa/Carleton) last night, where they discussed a mask mandate at an intense meeting that required police intervention to keep the crowd at bay, asked, "Why, if the situation is so dire, have neither Moore nor Ottawa's Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Vera Etches, imposed mask mandates?" And many people are saying - Wow, great point!! 

Campaigning on Covid

As you might know, if you're a frequent reader here, I'm running for an elected position: school board trustee. It's a little position, so there's no budget or staff. There's also no speeches or debates, just lawn signs and fliers. Campaigning is like an expensive two-month long job interview that requires a daily walking and stairs regimen that goes on for hours. Recently, some well-meaning friends who are trying to help me win (by heeding the noise of the loudest voices) cautioned me to limit any writing or posting about Covid. It turns people off and will cost me votes. I agreed, but then I had second thoughts the following day, and tweeted this:

I've been cautioned not to tweet so much about covid because it could cost me votes. But we're sleepwalking through a crisis that could be averted if we can just open our eyes to it. Hospitalizations and deaths are way higher now than this time in the previous two years.

Campaign Video

 I was asked for an "at the door" video of myself. Here it is!

Teachable Moments: Should Schools Teach About Covid?

 I've been talking with parents who are trying desperately to keep their kids safe in the classroom. It sounds like most staff and students are unmasked despite higher Covid numbers in the hospital and higher fatality rates than last year at this time. It doesn't have to be like this.

A big part of the problem is the type of messaging that says something like this: "Please understand and be tolerant of classmates who are still wearing masks." It makes it clear, subversively, that NOT wearing a mask is the normal thing to do. But shouldn't schools be teaching the facts about Covid?? We should expect students to come home educated about what's happening in the world around them as it affects them. When recycling was brought in to our cities, they targeted kids in grades 2-5 to bring the message home to parents, and it worked! In some science classes, people are learning how Corsi-Rosenthal boxes work, but they're still not allowed in our board. But here are some other options for lessons in the classroom to develop an educated populous.

First, kids need to understand a bit about how politics works and why Biden might suggest the pandemic's over despite averaging 500 deaths/day in the U.S. right now, which is more than a 9/11 tragedy every week.

Strategic Plan: What about Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic??

This isn't a response to a question directed at me, but some people are questioning trustee campaigns like mine that speak to equity and student well being without mentioning how to improve academics, and there are many concerned voices on Facebook addressing the board's new Strategic Plan. Here's a sampling:

• "I don't like vague promises."
• "Ford government continues to make cutbacks to education, so how can the Director say they will provide them with the resources they need? What exactly does that entail?"
• "This board has never mentioned the Right to Read inquiry going on."
• "This agenda that's taking the next generation to a wishy washy sphere."
• "Strategic plans lack the how that most people require in order to understand the impact."
• "We can't keep aiming for the lowest common denominator. We should be shooting for the highest possible results and then look at the ones who didn't achieve."
• "'Skills and knowledge needed to excel in the classroom' seems to be an afterthought."
• "Bring back cursive writing, how to budget, how to grow food..."
• "There's no math, science, reading... in the goals."

What IS a Strategic Plan?

On Vaccine Mandates

Vaccine mandates were just ruled as legal and enforceable by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice after a challenge to Seneca College's mandates by two students. I was asked my opinion on them as a potential trustee. Here's my answer.

Vaccination mandates are under the jurisdiction of provincial public health and the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC). Any concerns with vaccination policy in public schools can be raised with your MPP. Although some trustees may have advocated for vaccines, they had no effect. It's entirely in the Ministry's hands. I don't expect trustees to be able to override public health initiatives this year either - or I'll be very surprised if they do.

Personally, though, I feel strongly about bodily autonomy, but with vaccinations that require herd immunity (polio, measles, rubella, etc.), the health of our society requires that we vaccinate as many people as possible. However, there are always exceptions granted to individuals who are unable to vaccinate or opposed to vaccinations. If this vaccine is mandated again, typically parents would be able to get paperwork from their school to opt out. We need a critical mass to be vaccinated, but not necessarily 100%.

Trustee Campaigning: An Expensive, Two-Month Long Job Interview

A friend asked me,  You don't put your own money into doing this, do you, and deliver all the fliers to each door yourself??

Short answer: Yup! Running for trustee is like a very expensive and time consuming, two-month long job interview!

For trustees, there is no budget for campaigning. The money needed to create fliers and signs, which is the bulk of expenses necessary to get our names out there, are entirely paid for by each trustee, out of our own pockets. I spent about $2,000 so far! But the more signs that go up, the more people might remember my name on October 24th, out of a list of ten at the very bottom of that lengthy and complicated municipal ballot.

Some people have the impression that we pay people to deliver fliers as well, but that's out of reach for most people running, which is unfortunate, since the area I cover, the City of Waterloo and the Township of Wilmot, is bigger than covered by any prospective city councillor or mayor in the region. I thought I was in great shape for this, but a couple times I've come home so tired from hours of walking (after biking 20km or so to get to each area) that I could barely make it in the door. Fortunately, a few lovely people have come out of the woodwork to take a section of area off my hands and campaign for me, which is an amazing support that I didn't expect!