What Do Politics and Education Have In Common?

I cannot escape the conviction that when one considers the seamier side of education, with its sometimes immoral and concealed actions, its use of 'spin' and its willingness to overlook or minimize wrongdoing when it suits its purposes, there are many parallels with the kind of unethical, expedient and corrupt behaviour we often find among those we elect to public office.

The other reason for my preoccupation is that I have always detested the existence of double standards in the meting out of justice.

Two events involving two school boards, one current and one going back several years, suggest that justice is not only not done, but not seen to be done.

In today's Toronto Star, a story about a former Kingsville, Ont., principal, Wendy Lynn Liebing,

admitted misusing school board funds over three years and resigned from the association on June 14, the college said on its website. Her certificate of qualification and registration to teach were then cancelled. The case was detailed in the latest issue of the college’s magazine, Professionally Speaking.

“At the time of the resignation, a professional misconduct investigation was in progress wherein the member was alleged to have mismanaged and misappropriated school and board funds,” the website said.

Despite the College of Teacher's euphemistic reference to Liebling's having 'mismanaged and misappropriated' school money, the fact is that she embezzled over $50,000 from her employer, a crime that in most cases would result in criminal charges. I will offer my opionion on why that did not happen in a few moments.

The next case, which goes back several years, involves a former school principal named Glenn Crawford, who was employed by the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board.

Like Liebling, Crawford 'misused' school funds and assets for personal reasons, as he admitted to during the investigation. Amongst the fraudulent acts he admitted to were the following:

a) receiving unauthorized personal advances;

b) receiving reimbursement for meal and hotel expenses that were personal;

c) falsifying receipts from Ontario Principals’ Council in order to be reimbursed by the
school;

d) billing both the Ontario Principals’ Council and the school for expense claims;

e) using school funds and assets for personal reasons;

f) authorizing payment of expenses by the school for expenses not related to school activities, such as expenses related to events involving his son including the International Children’s Games and the B’nai Brith Sports Dinner;

g) using the school van for personal reasons and submitting the expenses to the school;

h) receiving reimbursement for the purchase of tires claimed but not installed on the school
van;

i)obtaining the personal services of landscaping company, where his son is a landscape contractor, and billing the school; and

j)authorizing landscape expenses for the 2001/2002 fiscal year higher than those for similar size schools.


The penalty for this malfeasance?

Essentially, Crawford was permitted to resign and had his teaching certificate suspended for one year.

You can read the full decision here.

So why were neither Liebling nor Crawford charged with a crime, something that usually happens to those who embezzle from their employers? The most benign explanation is that the board, being heavily influenced by institutional behaviour, wanted to minimize the publicity surrounding these odious deeds, publicity that would both diminish the institution's reputation and seriously damage the career advancement to the many who put their own fortunes above the good of education.

The second possibility, and admittedly a much more sinister one, is that people who commit crimes but are dealt with softly often have knowledge of things within the organization that no one wants exposed to public scrutiny.

While the latter explanation may seem rather paranoid and conspiratorial, my own years in education were witness to some very questionable things which, while I am not prepared to discuss them here, would never have passed 'the smell test'.

Bullying in the Workplace

For any teacher that has ever been bullied by an administrator, or is currently being bullied, there is an interesting article that provoked over 400 reader comments on the New York Times website. Check it out if you get the chance.

Shedding Some Light on the Mentality of the Toronto District School Board

Today’s Globe and Mail has a story that illustrates the culture of secrecy of the Toronto District School Board and apparent consequences for breaching that secrecy. The bolded parts are sections I found of particular interest.

Demoted vice-principal sues school board
JAMES BRADSHAW
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
February 7, 2008 at 4:21 AM EST

A former vice-principal of a Toronto elementary school is going to court today seeking remedy for what he claims were failures by the school board and Ontario College of Teachers to act on alleged threats and aggressive behaviour by the school's former principal.

Gary Pieters, now vice-principal at Carleton Village Public School, also states in court documents that he was demoted and penalized for reporting his allegations.

The documents filed with the court detail alleged misconduct between June, 2005, and February, 2006, by Gordon Kingsmill, then principal of the Shoreham Public School in the Jane-Finch area.

Mr. Kingsmill's lawyer, Sarah Colman, told The Globe and Mail that Mr. Kingsmill denies all allegations and that he was already cleared by two investigations.
The accusations include uttering a death threat against a teacher, pushing a Grade 2 student into a chair, expressing a desire to kick another Grade 2 student and threatening to burn a complaint against a teacher prepared by a Grade 5 student.
Mr. Pieters, who had been Mr. Kingsmill's vice-principal at Shoreham, states in an affidavit that he exhausted all internal complaint processes at the Toronto District School Board.

He then appealed to the Ontario College of Teachers, requesting that they submit his complaints to the discipline committee. The College of Teachers rejected the request. Mr. Kingsmill is presently principal at Agincourt Junior Public School.

Ms. Colman said in an interview that "Mr. Kingsmill has been through two thorough investigations," and that both "have determined that Mr. Pieters' allegations are without merit."

Ms. Colman also said that Mr. Pieters "did not witness directly many of the incidents he alleges occurred." The factum filed with the court details Mr. Pieters's presence at only two incidents.

Spokespeople for the school board and College of Teachers both declined comment because the matter is before the courts.

Mr. Pieters alleges in the court documents that he "faced retaliatory actions for blowing the whistle and consequences up to and including a Letter of Record in his personnel file, home assignment without duties, and a partial demotion" from full vice-principal to part-time status combined with duties as an ESL teacher, for which he is not certified.

The request for a judicial review comes less than a month after publication of a report on school safety, chiefly written by lawyer Julian Falconer, claimed that a culture of silence in the city's public schools led staff to avoid reporting misconduct for fear of repercussions.

Mr. Pieters's submissions to the court also complain that the College of Teachers relied "on a materially flawed and procedurally unfair" report by a school board investigator, and that the college investigator failed to review evidence.
But Ms. Colman said the board investigator was "an independent third party," and the College of Teachers "spent months investigating the allegations and interviewing witnesses."

Culture of Concealment - Part 2

In the last post I gave several examples demonstrating the administrative penchant for obscuring unpleasant truths. What are the effects of decisions prompted by policies of parental appeasement, avoidance, and concealment? Beyond the immediate impact of eroding student discipline and respect for rules, which makes the school less safe for everyone, there are much more insidious consequences negatively affecting the educational experience: staff demoralization, cynicism, and, in the case of impressionable younger teachers, the sense that educational principles are fluid and changeable, which, in turn, adversely affects their own judgment and development as educators. One final example will help to illustrate this.

In a specific department I will not identify, the practice existed of having a fieldtrip for the culminating task, which accounts for a certain percentage of the final mark. In this particular instance, because the students had performed so badly in the accompanying activities, the department head changed the assignment’s criteria so that everyone got at least 80%. Consequently, the teachers of students who did not go on the fieldtrip were instructed to make sure that their culminating task was designed so that those students would also achieve a minimum of 80%. Whether this perversion of education principles occurred with the knowledge and consent of the administration I cannot say, but the very fact that it happened should not be surprising, given the kind of environment and mentality arising from the weak leadership I have described here.

It would be easy for readers to dismiss each of my illustrations as isolated and insignificant events, but the truth is that most teachers have similar or worse stories to tell, but are not free to speak about them. Although boards would vehemently deny it, the pervasive organization ethos is that making things difficult or embarrassing for ‘the bosses’ is to invite, at the very least, career stagnation, and at the very worst, retribution, even dismissal. As we were often told by our local federation, criticizing your employer is grounds for dismissal. The fact that I am retired is the only reason I can bring these matters to light, and the reality is that I have presented only a highly selective version of what transpires in schools today; because I have no desire to jeopardize the careers of teachers who are still working, and the fact that some of the administrative transgressions I know of are based only on reliable second hand accounts, I have omitted much.

Without doubt, whenever misdeeds are brought to light, senior administrators and board officials will, as they always have, utter platitudes designed to placate the public, while ignoring opportunities for substantive change. The culture of concealment will, in one form or another, continue unless two things happen:

• Whistle-blower protection for teachers is enacted to spare them the retribution that normally ensues when people dare to speak out

• Board trustees begin to take back some of the responsibility for the day to day operation of schools they have abdicated to administrators and bureaucrats, both of whom often have an agenda at odds with quality education.

Unless and until there is a real desire for improvement at the top, things will, I fear, continue to deteriorate in our schools.

The Culture of Concealment Part 1

Thanks to the recent publication of the school safety panel report investigating violence in Toronto schools, the general public has received a rare glimpse into some unpleasant truths about contemporary secondary education. One of the newspaper headlines, ‘Fears of career suicide stopped educators from reporting violence,’ was followed by the revelation of a board–wide staff failure to report problems due to fears that revealing anything reflecting badly on the board would be “a career-limiting move.” Unfortunately, however, people living outside of Toronto have little reason to feel smug. This culture of concealment is widespread in public education today.

Although now retired, as a teacher for thirty years I witnessed my own share of questionable decisions and behaviour based more on political expedience than educational principle, and most seemed to spring from the almost pathological fear many administrators have of dealing with unhappy parents or having their schools look in any way less than perfect. Sadly, such a short-sighted philosophy incurs both immediate and long- term consequences. A few of my own experiences may help to illustrate.

Years ago I broke up a game of hackey sack in which one student was being physically assaulted by two others; after delivering them to the office with a full report, I was dismayed to later learn that no discipline had been meted out, as the physical abuse had “been part of the game.” When I insisted to the vice-principal that suspension was warranted, he protested that such action would require him “to answer some hard questions from the parents.”

For several years now, smoking has been banned on school property. It is the practice of bylaw officials to inform schools of the date they will be visiting for enforcement purposes. For a time at my school, however, when such a visit was pending, daily announcements were made warning the students that the ‘smoke police’ would soon be arriving. The common perception amongst staff was that these announcements were made to ensure that no student would receive a citation, thereby minimizing the chance of parental outrage.

A strategy of containment is at times practiced by wary administrators. On one occasion, a student who had urinated on the floor outside of the school’s photo developing lab was apprehended by a custodian. I subsequently learned that the perpetrator was ‘punished’ with a week of cafeteria clean-up duty, and when I complained that such an egregious violation of the school merited a suspension, I was shocked to learn that the offender’s parents hadn’t even been notified, as administrators were concerned that there might be “home issues.”

Bullying, despite board rhetoric about zero tolerance, is another problem compounded by administrative ineptitude. In one incident, a vice-principal told me I would be receiving a new student, three weeks into the semester, as she had been the victim of bullying in one of her classes. When I inquired as to why the administrator was victimizing her a second time by revamping her entire academic schedule instead of punishing the bullies, I was told that the identity of her tormentors was unknown. Two days later, I learned from a very reliable source that the administration did, in fact, know who they were.

Perhaps the worst example of administrative indifference to school safety occurred several years ago. A colleague was threatened with death by one of her students, which she immediately reported to the office. The student who made the threat was told that if he ever did it again, he would face suspension. The victim suffered tremendous psychological distress as a result of this event, and was off on a sick leave for a significant amount of time afterwards, fearful that the student would, in fact, carry out his threat.

In Part 2, I will discuss some of the effects of decisions prompted by policies of parental appeasement, avoidance, and concealment.

School Safety - Part 3

Once more, I have included in bold print the parts that seem particularly pertinent to teachers. As well, the politically expedient comments of Gerry Connelly, the Director of Education for the TDSB, have been bolded. One fact the article fails to make clear is that any criticism of your employer can be grounds for dismissal, undoubtedly another reason for the culture of fear and concealment endemic in education.

SCHOOL SAFETY: UNREPORTED ASSAULTS
Violent incidents hushed up, union says
CAROLINE ALPHONSO
January 12, 2008

Toronto's high-school teachers' union confirmed yesterday that educators are told by administrators to keep safety issues quiet for fear of damaging their schools' reputations.

Simultaneously, principals moved to tackle the hundreds of unreported violent assaults taking place on school grounds in the wake of a damning report on school safety.

Doug Jolliffe, president of the Toronto district of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, said union members are reluctant to speak out about violence because they are rarely protected by their superiors.

A culture of fear permeates the TDSB, Mr. Jolliffe said, echoing the conclusion drawn by criminal lawyer Julian Falconer, who led a high-profile investigation into the issue.

His panel heard from employees of the Toronto District School Board, who said that revealing violent incidents in schools, including robberies and sexual assaults, would be "career-limiting" because it would reflect negatively on the board.

Mr. Falconer was asked to report on school safety after 15-year-old Jordan Manners was shot to death at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute in May.

The panel's final report, made public this week, describes the country's largest school board as rife with violent attacks swept under the rug.


"The principal's argument would be if this stuff gets out, it reflects badly on the school," Mr. Jolliffe said. "If it reflects badly on the school, then we'll have fewer students here. If we have fewer students, then we're going to lose jobs here."


The union chief added: "I don't agree with that, but that's what they say to people."
Meanwhile, principals met with the TDSB's director of education, Gerry Connelly, to discuss the report. Principals were asked to speak with staff, students and parents about what can be done to rectify the problem.

"One of my main priorities is to ensure that we have a culture of trust and openness," Ms. Connelly said.

"Fear of reprisal ... was most unfortunate."

Unfortunate, but very real, Mr. Jolliffe said.

"We can't afford to do that any more. We need to figure out what we're going to do about it," he said. "We need to make our schools safer."

School Safety - Part 2

The findings of the school safety panel investigating violence in the Toronto District School Board were reported in today’s Globe and Mail. Teachers, I think, will see the almost universal truth expressed in the section I have placed in bold print.

Fears of career suicide stopped educators from reporting violence
CAROLINE ALPHONSO AND OMAR EL AKKAD
From Friday's Globe and Mail
January 11, 2008 at 4:01 AM EST

Teachers and school staff are too intimidated to speak out about violence in Toronto's public schools, a damning report charges.

A school safety panel revealed yesterday that employees of the Toronto District School Board told them they feared that revealing school safety issues or anything that would reflect negatively on the board would be "a career-limiting move."
As a result, hundreds of incidents that should have been reported were not. This "culture of fear" led to a failure of the system and its overseers to protect students from violence, including robberies and sexual assault, on school grounds, the report said.

"Jordan Manners died on May 23, 2007, of flat neglect, pure neglect," panel chair Julian Falconer said yesterday, referring to the 15-year-old whose shooting sparked the inquiry.

The panel's findings had officials at Canada's largest school board facing uncomfortable questions about why so many violent incidents go unreported, and why it took the death of a 15-year-old to prompt a review of school safety.

"I think that until [the Jordan Manners shooting] happened, we probably thought we had a pretty good handle on it," said John Campbell, chair of the TDSB. "And I think what that did is it really drew attention to the fact that we didn't have a very good handle on it."

Mr. Falconer said many officials within the school system are too intimidated to report violent incidents. Many of the school officials interviewed by the panel refused to go on the record for fear of reprisal.

"People are afraid and it's not just students; it's teachers," Mr. Falconer said.
Toronto District School Board officials hastily convened a press conference yesterday. Both the School Community Safety Advisory Panel's final report and the press conference were scheduled for early next week, but the report was leaked to virtually all the city's major news media outlets on Wednesday.

The panel - led by Mr. Falconer - was asked to report on school safety after Jordan was shot to death at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute in North York.
The report, which is almost 1,000 pages, describes the country's largest school system as rife with violence, including robberies and sexual assaults - all unreported by school officials.


The lack of reporting is the biggest problem the board must deal with, according the Manners family's lawyer.

"That is one of the greatest concerns," said Courtney Betty. "That code of silence continues to be maintained."

Mr. Betty said it remains to be seen the extent to which the TDSB will continue the "mirage" that everything is all right within the school system.


Jordan's mother, Laureen Small, is especially upset that a summary of the report was not given to her in advance, the lawyer said. Ms. Small found out about its contents from news stories yesterday.

Since Jordan's killing, Mr. Betty said, no one from the TDSB has contacted Ms. Small to express condolences.

Gerry Connelly, the TDSB's director of education, said that while the school board's own information shows that students feel safe in their schools, the report clearly indicated more work is needed.

"With respect to weapons, with respect to violence, with respect to sexual assaults: our students and our staff must feel clearly, absolutely safe and they must feel empowered to report any incident or suspicion that comes to their notice."

The school board is piloting a "Safeline" that students can call anonymously 24 hours a day to report incidents.

But Mr. Falconer said there is no "quick fix" to the board's problems.
"You could fill a Home Hardware with the amount of knives kids bring to school, but we don't find them," he said.

Since Jan. 13, 2006, the panel says, it found 177 violent incidents in schools across the district, including gun incidents, robberies and sexual assaults. During its inquiry, the panel came across allegations of a gang sexual assault of a Muslim female student at C.W. Jefferys.

At Westview Centennial Secondary School near the corner of Jane and Finch, 29 female students said they had been victims of major sexual assault at the school in the past two years, according to the report.

The panel issued 126 recommendations, including that the board employ canine units to sniff out weapons in a "non-intrusive" manner.

The panel also calls on the Ministry of Education to strike a task force on implementing the recommendations.

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne would not comment on specific recommendations in the report, saying she needed more time to study it. However, she said the ministry will fund more social workers and counsellors and continues to pump more money into the school system.

"There's always more to do," she said. "We've been changing the funding formula every year."

Some of the panel's other recommendations received mixed reviews.
A Toronto police officer questioned a proposal for each school to set up a "student hot-line," manned by pupils familiar with such issues as bullying, augmented by a TDSB-created website allowing students to relay anonymous crime-related tips.
Such tip lines are already in place, albeit in different forms.

"And we don't need to reinvent the wheel," said Constable Scott Mills, who runs Toronto's Crime Stoppers school program.

Constable Mills said he offered to speak to the Falconer panel, but none of its members got back to him.

At C.W. Jefferys yesterday, students didn't seem too concerned about the dire condition the report says their school is in. However, some said that students simply don't talk about violent incidents.

"The reputation going around is: when you talk, you're basically a snitch," said student Chandé Wilmot. "[People worry] that they might get beat up."
With reports from James Bradshaw, Timothy Appleby and Anthony Capuano
*****
Violent acts

Examples of violent incidents involving Toronto public school students:
February, 2006 - A high-school student was in a laneway behind the school passing a rifle back and forth with another student. Shots were fired into a window at the back of a house.

February, 2006 - Two female secondary-school students were in a conflict over a boy. One girl brought a knife to school and used it to threaten the other girl. Police investigated and cautioned the girl with the knife. The school issued a 20-day suspension.

April, 2006 - Five secondary-school students robbed another student of his MP3 player at the back of the school. The victim was searched for money but only had 25 cents in his wallet, which the suspects took. All five students were arrested and charged with robbery.

September, 2006 - A male secondary-school teacher entered the staff washroom and caught two students engaged in a sex act. Both students were taken to the office and the administration called the police. Even though the sex act was determined to be consensual, criminal charges were laid against the male student because of the age of the female. The school was to discipline the female student.

March, 2007 - A male student at a high school tried to drag a female student into the washroom to perform fellatio. She broke free and ran to the principal. When arresting the male, police found 10 dime bags of marijuana.

May, 2007 - A student brought a BB gun to school and shot at two students. The student was charged by police.

September, 2007 - Several boys were allegedly involved in the sexual initiation of a female high-school student, who told a teacher about the incident. Police are investigating.

November, 2007 - A secondary-school student assaulted another student with a knife on school property. Police arrested the student and told him to keep away from the school. The principal issued a 20-day suspension pending possible expulsion.

Source: The Road to Health: A Final Report on School Safety

School Safety

Below, I am posting the latest news about the Toronto District School Board and its culture of concealment. One would be naïve, however, to think that the failure of administrators to report assaults is unique to that board. I remember an incident in my own career a few years back when the vice-principal informed me that a student would be joining my English class three weeks into the semester. I was told that the student had been a victim of bullying in one of her classes, and therefore her entire schedule was being rearranged so she would no longer be in the class where the bullying took place. When I asked the vice-principal why this student was being victimized a second time by having her schedule disrupted, she said, “Lorne, I’m trying to save this girl.” When I asked why the people responsible for the bullying weren’t being punished instead, she claimed that she didn’t know their identities, something I found hard to believe. Two days later, a guidance counselor confirmed to me that the v.p. had been lying in claiming not to know their identities. Similarly, you will read of administrative cravenness and ineptitude in the story that follows. I have put the most pertinent parts in bold print.

SCHOOL SAFETY
Report describes 'culture of fear' in TDSB
Hundreds of assaults go unreported
CAROLINE ALPHONSO AND OMAR EL AKKAD
January 10, 2008
The Toronto District School Board should consider purchasing and using firearm-detecting K9 units, according to one of the recommendations of the School Community Safety Advisory Panel report - a document that paints perhaps the grimmest picture yet of Toronto's public schools, rife with hundreds of violent, often unreported, assaults.

The panel's final report - set to be released in a few days, but obtained by The Globe and Mail yesterday - weighs in at almost 1,000 pages and describes not only numerous violent incidents but a pervasive culture of silence among students, staff and principals when it comes to reporting those incidents.

"This culture of fear, or culture of silence, permeates through every level of the TDSB," the report says.

"There is a community-wide crisis of confidence in the ability of the TDSB to ensure violence-free and weapons-free environments in all of its schools," it says.

The panel was set up by the TDSB after the shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners last May at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute in North York. The final massive report comes after the panel, headed up by respected criminal lawyer Julian Falconer, asked for and received several budget and timeline extensions.

The report's findings show a shockingly high number of violent school incidents.
Since Jan. 13, 2006, the panel says it found 177 violent incidents in schools across the district -- they include gun incidents, robberies and sexual assaults. The panel found there were guns in select schools across the city "in non-trivial numbers."

At Westview Centennial secondary school near the corner of Jane and Finch, the panel found that one of every three female students said they have been the victim of sexual harassment at their school over past two years. Almost 30 per cent of female students at the school said they had experienced unwanted sexual contact over that period of time.

Twenty-nine female students said they had been victims of major sexual assault at the school.

At C.W. Jefferys, almost 20 per cent of female students said they had been the victims of sexual assault, the report said.

One of the most shocking side effects of the panel's investigation over the past few months was the discovery of the alleged sexual assault of a female Muslim student at C.W. Jefferys. The final report sheds more light on the incident, which took place in October, 2006.

According to the report, several students approached a female teacher to report that a Muslim girl had been sexually assaulted in the second-floor boys washroom by a group of boys.

"The students came forward because they were concerned that the boys involved were targeting girls who were unpopular and isolated," the report says.

The female teacher and the students told a vice-principal about the alleged attack, but neither police or her parents were informed, the report says.

As more students heard about what happened, however, the female student was further harassed by other students, although steps were taken to curb abuse, the report says.
The female student was eventually transferred to another school at the request of both her and her father. But no steps were taken to remove the alleged attackers from school, the report says.

The former principal and two vice-principals at C.W. Jefferys have been charged under Ontario's Child and Family Services Act with failing to report an alleged sexual assault on a student, Toronto District School Board education director Gerry Connelly confirmed this week, before the final report's release.

Some of the report's recommendations are almost as sensational as some of the findings.

"The TDSB should take immediate steps to ensure that adequate security measures are employed to ensure all potential storage areas for weapons (including lockers) are the subject of regular non-intrusive searches," the report says.

Consideration should also be given to random usage of TDSB-owned K9 units that specialize in firearm detection, the panel advised.

The panel also recommended the provincial government amend the education act to create a mandatory reporting obligation for all school staff when it comes to such violent incidents.

Schools with high suspension, expulsion or dropout rates should be staffed with full-time social workers and youth workers, the panel advised - TDSB should also hire 20 new full-time social workers dedicated to high-priority schools.

Nemesis is Sometimes a Sweet Thing

As much as I would like to claim personal magnanimity and say I take no pleasure in the misfortune of others, the story from today’s Globe and Mail that I am reprinting below made my day in its exposure of administrative duplicity. As anyone who has taught for any period of time will know, management, ranging from school to senior administration, frequently has a seemingly endless capacity for concealing things that reflect badly on their schools. I attribute this to the likelihood that the people who are attracted to management tend to be political, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In any event, my prediction is that unlike teachers who might have done the same thing, these administrators will not lose their jobs. In fact, one of them mentioned in the article has already retired. But that double standard is perhaps the basis of a future post.

C.W. Jefferys staff charged with failing to report alleged assault
TIMOTHY APPLEBY
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
January 8, 2008 at 4:36 AM EST

Days before the release of a report on safety in Toronto schools, three senior staff members at the high school that spawned the inquiry face troubles of their own.
The former principal and two vice-principals at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute have been charged under Ontario's Child and Family Services Act with failing to report an alleged sexual assault on a student, Toronto District School Board education director Gerry Connelly confirmed yesterday.

Disposition of those non-criminal charges, however, will likely wait until the courts deal with the six young people charged in the alleged sex attack, in which a 14-year-old Muslim girl told of being assaulted in a school washroom.
Principal Charis Newton-Thompson and vice-principals Silvio Tallevi and Stan Gordon face fines of up to $1,000 if convicted. Ms. Newton-Thompson and Mr. Gordon are on paid leave; Mr. Tallevi has retired.

The sex charges stemmed from the investigation into the death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners, shot last May inside C.W. Jefferys, a 900-student high school near Keele Street and Finch Avenue West.

Two males aged 17 at the time of the killing face charges of first-degree murder.
Jordan's death prompted creation of a panel examining school safety issues, led by criminal lawyer Julian Falconer, whose findings are expected to be aired early next week.

Among other things, the panel learned of the alleged attack on the girl, in which she is believed to have been lured inside a school washroom in October, 2006, and forced to perform oral sex on one or more boys while the others kept watch.

The six youths have been charged with gang sexual assault, forcible confinement and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.

The CFSA charges, in turn, reflect allegations aired at the panel hearings that school staff became aware of the washroom incident but failed to report it to police or the Children's Aid Society, as the law requires with allegations of physical or sexual assault.

"Following policy, we sent the three administrators home and notified the police," Ms. Connelly said yesterday. "Now they've charged the three a