Long, winding road toward education equity

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/01/2022 (1709 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ON Dec. 6, the Winnipeg School Division (WSD) school board unanimously voted to conduct an education-equity audit and establish an education-equity office to address issues of student and employment equity on an ongoing and proactive basis.

This historic equity-based motion is rooted in years of community advocacy to change the governance structure of the board of trustees to make it more representative of the students, families and residents it serves.

Systemic racism is a structure, not an event.

Political scientist Iris Young points out that social justice involves not only the redistribution of resources in society; it also involves the concept of non-distributive justice that brings further attention to the impact of inclusion and exclusion in decision-making structures such as school boards.

Young identifies how decision-making structures enact and reproduce their power. Existing justice perspectives that focus on rights, opportunities and resources fail to bring issues of decision-making, power and representation under evaluation. These non-distributive dynamics causally affect the distribution of resources.

Shifting power relations is rarely achieved through the leadership of existing institutions. Instead, authentic change in redistributing existing power relations comes from community leadership and advocacy.

Dr. Martin Luther King articulates this belief in his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:

“We have not made a single gain for civil rights without determined legal and non-violent pressure. Lamentably, it is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but groups tend to be more immoral than individuals… We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

More than 20 years ago, community members were concerned about the structural barriers faced by Indigenous peoples, members of racialized groups, inner-city residents and residents of certain geographic areas in relation to their representation on the WSD board of trustees.

These citizens believed that in order to improve education policies and outcomes for Indigenous and racialized children, the voices of the diverse communities within the WSD needed to be represented on the school board.

Between 1971 to 2010, of the 117 trustees that were elected in the WSD, six were Indigenous and eight from racialized groups; only twice was there ever a trustee elected from Fort Rouge, and trustees were never elected from Elmwood or Tyndall Park.

Based on 2010 City of Winnipeg election data, the average size of a ward in the WSD was 45,300 voters. In comparison, the average size of a ward in the five other school divisions in Winnipeg was 18,100. That average WSD ward, with 45,300 voters, would elect three trustees, despite being larger than the entirety of the St. James-Assiniboia (44,900) and Seven Oaks (38,400) school divisions, which elected nine trustees for their respective school boards.

Trustee representation equity was a major concern.

In May 2001, the Leadership in Education Accountability Dialogue (LEAD) coalition was organized and petitioned the WSD school board, under Section 57(1) of the Public Schools Act, to replace the three-ward/three-trustee system with a nine-ward/one-trustee system, and to establish an independent committee to make ward system changes.

The WSD school board voted six to three to reject the ward-system proposal in December 2005.

LEAD made a formal request to the minister of education to refer the ward-boundary issue to an independent review body known as the Board of Reference. The minister of the day refused.

Over the years, community members remained concerned about the governance structure of the WSD and once again organized a residents group to address this education equity issue.

In May 2013, the residents group petitioned the WSD school board to change to a nine-ward/one-trustee system.

The WSD board of trustees voted six to three in November 2013 to adopt the new trustee system, presumably in part because two trustees were retiring and no longer needed to protect their self-interest of maintaining the status quo regarding the ward system that got them elected.

School board elections in October 2014 were held with the new nine-ward/one-trustee system.

Currently, four of the school board trustees of the WSD self-identify as Indigenous and one as a racialized person – a positive legacy of the impact of the ward system changes. As well, the board has trustee representation from Fort Rouge, Tyndall Park and Elmwood.

This historic decision by the WSD took place because of the removal of the systemic barriers involving decision-making structures at the school-board level. More inclusive representation has enabled the community to further deal with issues of education equity by establishing an education-equity office and education-equity audit to promote student and employment equity within the WSD on a proactive and ongoing basis.

Tom Simms is co-director of the Community Education Development Association.