The Education Ministry is providing a pair of "special advisors" to " provide the Minister of Education with advice and recommendations about how the Near North District School Board can improve its governance" BayToday has learned.
To that end, the advisors have set up a survey to measure the Board's performance.
"The special advisors put that out," Board Chair Jay Aspin told BayToday. "What they are effectively doing is being a tremendous assistance. Our board is sorely lacking in a number of areas due to what's happened in the past three or four years. These people were provided by the Ministry to help us out. They are extremely experienced individuals and they're helping us out.
"They want to conduct what they call 'a 360' to get everybody's point of view and encourage all stakeholders. They are doing what they need to do to get the information."
However, the survey, titled "NNDSB Parent and Community Survey" was apparently sent out only to parents with no publicity to gain wider community input, and ironically, the public survey is not on the NNDSB website.
See the survey here.
The survey closes later today.
There are five questions in the survey including " Board Transparency: The NNDSB and its schools operate in an open, transparent and accountable manner."
There are four others:
-
Please indicate whether you are a parent, community member or both.
-
Student Achievement: The NNDSB schools successfully enhance student achievement
-
Student Safety and Well-being: The NNDSB Schools promote the safety and well-being of students.
-
Equity: The NNDSB Schools ensure that all students and student needs are recognized and addressed
An email to parents says "The Near North District School Board is committed to enhancing its service to students, parents, and stakeholders within its jurisdiction. That commitment led the Board to request special support from the Minister of Education. The Ministry of Education has agreed to the request and assigned two Special Advisors to work with the Near North District School Board.
"The Special Advisors' mandate is to provide the Minister of Education with advice and recommendations about how the Near North District School Board can improve its governance, human resources practices and financial accountability role to support and improve public confidence in the board and in Ontario's publicly funded education system.
"The survey below is one of several ways in which the Special Advisors are gathering information to help develop recommendations and advice."
