History has again been made as three black women have been appointed among the directors of Ontario’s 72 school boards.
In a historic first, three boards — including Toronto and Peel, the two largest in the province — now have Black women at the helm.
In Toronto, Carlene Jackson recently took over as interim director after leading the country’s largest board through its budget and COVID-19 planning.
Also, in Peel, Colleen Russell-Rawlins will soon start as interim director and will take on the role permanently once a provincial supervisor — brought in after several reports found troubling incidents of racism and dysfunction — has left.
Recall that last year, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board appointed Camille Williams-Taylor, who hailed from the Toronto and Durham boards, to its top job.
Speaking on the development, Jackson said “In society, we are in a period of change, and I think that our school boards are reflecting this as well. Although we should definitely celebrate this achievement — having three black directors at once, it is a great accomplishment — I also feel that we can’t get complacent and think that our work is done”.
“We still have a lot of work to do. We need to get to a place where staff at all levels of the organization are representative of the communities that we serve. And that should be in all boards, at all levels, from teachers right up to the director.”
On her part, Russell-Rawlins said “It is my heartfelt wish that there will come a time in Ontario where the story that you are writing today will cease to be interesting, because there will be Black, Indigenous, Muslim, queer leaders of school boards, and that doors will be open, stereotypes disrupted, so that three Black women won’t be an anomaly.”
For Williams-Taylor, having three Black female leaders is a “demonstration of the possibility, a demonstration of the progress that many of our communities, our systems, continue to make … and the fact that there is talent in places we may not have looked before.”
The Nigerian Canadian News gathered that the Toronto, Peel and Ottawa boards educate more than 457,000 students in all, or almost one-quarter of the entire school population in Ontario.
It would also be recalled that back in 2002, Avis Glaze moved to the Kawartha Pine Ridge board in the Peterborough area to become its director of education — the first Black woman in the province ever to hold that position. Up until last year’s appointment of Williams-Taylor, there were no others.
“I am just delighted,” Glaze told newsmen where she now lives. “There are so many talented Black women who have gone through the ranks, who have prepared themselves well. If you look at their academic backgrounds, they have all done well … they have done postgraduate work … they are all very career-focused in terms of how they prepare themselves for these positions.”
And there are many more out there, she added, who “now feel empowered to do the job — and they now have role models in the job.”
Remarking on the development, Education Minister Stephen Lecce, whose government has proposed to boost diversity among teachers and senior staff, said, “We are proud to see strong, qualified and diverse leaders rising in our province to chart a positive path forward for our students … We are going to continue to champion quality and diversity, from our directors to our educators, to ensure the best leaders are selected to serve their communities.”
This is coming weeks after the province announced a number of measures to combat systemic racism in the education system, including banning most suspensions for younger students and phasing out academic streaming — two areas that particularly impact Black, Indigenous and low-income youth. Those measures came in response to concerns raised in communities, especially Peel, about discrimination and anti-Black racism that have gone on for years.
“We recognize the continued need for all of us all to listen, learn, speak up and act on racism, specifically anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism in Ontario,” said Ontario Public School Boards’ Association president Cathy Abraham. “Having diversity in leadership is an important part of this.”
