Yes phoning up a trustee, as I have found is a total waste of my time. To be told at the end of the conversation, that they do not have the power to change it or it is not part of their job, and that it rests with the staff of the board or the at the ministry’s level, makes the trustee ‘yes-men’ for the board staff and the ministry level. It is particularly galling when the trustees are being paid a salary.

Agreed!

  I suspect the whole concept of “trustee” harkens back to the days when school boards were reasonable autonomous and locally-focussed.  Now they’ve morphed into large, complex, and expensive undertakings.  How possible is it for someone doing what is supposed to be a part-time job to keep up with the amount of stuff handed down by the MofEd, their own bureaucrats, deal with heavily unionized workforces, etc.

Then there’s the issue of only limited ability to direct funds to areas most in need.  No doubt there’ be all sorts of ministry rules, collective agreements, etc to be dealt with.

I’ve always thought that trustee elections were one of those things that most voters don’t pay any attention to and so led themselves to being manipulated by those in the field; sorta stacking the slate with “tame” candidates who’d do as they’re told.  One positive element of taking the power to raise taxes away from local trustees was to limit their ability to buy labour peace on the backs of taxpayers by simply raising taxes whenever more money was demanded.

I’m pretty sure this same pressure exists on trustee here in our country.

When declaring candidacy for election to trustee position one of the first pieces of correspondence candidates receive is a lengthy questionnaire from the teacher unions.