Calls for dissolution of school board grow louder in Dauphin

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This article was published 11/06/2024 (494 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DAUPHIN — Calls for a rural Manitoba school board to be dissolved grew Monday, a week after three trustees resigned and the superintendent was fired.

More than two dozen residents filled the chambers of Mountain View School Division Monday night for the first board meeting since the resignations of trustees Leifa Misko, Floyd Martens and Scott McCallum, and the dismissal of Supt. Stephen Jaddock.

Board chair Gabe Mercier, who warned visitors at the beginning of the meeting that only board members and administrators were allowed to speak, accepted the trustee’s resignations, but did not discuss them. Mercier and the remaining four trustees were in attendance at the meeting.

The division has been embroiled in controversy since April, when trustee Paul Coffey made comments about Indigenous people that were condemned by Indigenous leaders and the Manitoba Teachers’ Society.

Education Minister Nello Altomare ordered a governance review at the end of April, but results have has not been released. A spokesperson for Altomare confirmed the minister and members of the board met Tuesday but said the review is ongoing.

MTS president Nathan Martindale attended the meeting Monday and renewed his call for the board to be dissolved, which would remove all members and allow the province to appoint a special trustee to manage the division’s affairs.

“A timely decision by the government is important here,” Martindale said, calling Coffey’s comments racist and harmful. “That respects the communities, the teachers, the students that have been affected by events out here.”

Interrupting the meeting, parent Jarri Thompson also called for the dissolution of the board and criticized trustees’ recent actions.

Thompson, an Indigenous mother of two children in the division, told the Brandon Sun before the meeting that she is tired of the board’s “underhandedness.”

“I think it really came to a head back in November, when they tried to ban certain books from the schools,” she said, referencing discussions by the board after delegations pushing for the removal of LGBTTQ+ books from school libraries.

“This message that the board is sending right now is, you don’t get to be yourself in the schools, you have to be as we tell you, but we’re going to pretend that we’re looking out for the greater good of the community.”

Only Coffey touched on the governance review during the meeting, saying it had been suggested that trustees spend more time educating themselves on various issues and the Public Schools Act.

Several visitors in the gallery wore orange “Every Child Matters” T-shirts in response to the harm done by residential schools, while others wore rainbow Pride badges.

Outside, a group stood near the entrance to the building carrying signs that read “Christ is king” and “June belongs to the sacred heart of Jesus.”

Rodney Juba, a former Dauphin city councillor, said he was looking for a broader perspective as to the board’s plan moving forward.

He said he would like byelections called to fill the board vacancies as soon as possible.

“I don’t feel that a board should be minus that many people, regardless of whatever situation is going on,” Juba said.

As for whether the board should be dissolved, Juba said the ongoing review process needed to be respected.

“If we rush in, you have these issues based on emotion,” he said. “There’s enough angst in the community based on all-around lack of knowledge.”

Mercier declined to speak with the Brandon Sun after the board meeting, saying he’d been advised by the division’s lawyers not to speak to media about recent events.

— Brandon Sun