Who Did You Vote For.......

It is becoming more and more obvious that voters need to start paying attention to who is running for school trustees in their area.....I hate to say it but I don't recall who I voted for and who was elected.

Trustee needs a lesson in democracy

The following will apparently come as a shock to Toronto school trustee James Pasternak.

It's the fact that just as he has the right to support a black-focused, junior kindergarten to Grade 5 public school scheduled to open in his ward in September, so trustee Josh Matlow has the right to oppose it.

Or to ask the board to reconsider its 11-9 decision earlier this year to open it.

For Pasternak's benefit, this is how democratic institutions work.

In that context, Pasternak's notice of motion to the board last week seeking to gag Matlow from criticizing the school, and indeed to silence any trustee critical of any board school or the philosophy behind it, was appallingly anti-democratic.

Yesterday, Pasternak withdrew the proposal after it was reported in the Sun, saying he had only intended to raise the issue with fellow trustees for discussion.

But what trustees received from Pasternak was a notice of motion seeking support for his idea that not only should trustees be prohibited from criticizing schools or the philosophy behind them, but they should be hauled before the board's ethics review committee for making such remarks.

He also argued part of their communications budget, if it was used to publicize their criticisms, should be withheld while the committee investigated them.

Aside from confusing an allegation with a finding of fact, and that you don't punish until there is a finding of fact, Pasternak's entire motion was offensive to democracy.

Since there is only one black-focused school in the board, how could any trustee say anything critical about the idea of such a school, using Pasternak's bizarre logic?

Like Matlow, we don't agree with the board's decision to create this school.

We consider it to be tokenism and an attempt by the board to dodge the real issue -- the alarming, system-wide drop-out rate of 40% for black students.

That said, the board had every right to make this decision.

For Pasternak's information, that's how democracy works, too.