Waterloo School Board Trustee Expresses Concerns With ‘Exclusionary Practices’ in Education Amid ’Racialized' Job Fair

Waterloo Region District School Board trustee Mike Ramsay. Handout

Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) trustee Mike Ramsay, a former police officer, said he has concerns that “racial segregation“ in education is ”making a comeback.”

He made the comment on social media on March 16, adding, “How far we have fallen out of balance.”

Ramsay told The Epoch Times on March 22 that the comments referred to a job fair that was recently advertised by WRDSB specifically for “indigenous, black, and racialized individuals.”

The job fair was listed on the school board’s Twitter page on March 10, with the statement, “Our diverse student body needs and deserves to have role models who understand their lived experiences.”

“When students see themselves reflected in the education system, they perform better,” said WRDSB on the job fair registration page. The event is scheduled for March 29 at the WRDSB Education Centre, in Kitchener, Ont.

Ramsay said he expressed his discomfort with “the way in which the board is going about doing ’targeted hiring,'” at a recent March 20 board meeting.

He said he told the board that he supports “targeted hiring in principle, but can’t in good conscience support exclusionary practices that actually do not address under-representation,“ citing as an example, ”the low number of male teachers in our schools.”

“I also asked for staff to demonstrate and advise where the Human Rights Code sanctions the exclusionary practices. They acknowledged that Section 14 of the OHRC does not specifically sanction what they are doing,” Ramsay said.

‘Diverse and Inclusive Learning Environment’

The school board received a number of negative comments on social media about the job fair and turned off public commenting on Twitter on March 14, stating, “The Ministry of Education has identified a significant gap that exists not only in the Waterloo Region but across Ontario. In response, the ministry has directed boards to encourage diversity in the teaching workforce, as it should be reflective of the diversity in the province.”

“This is not only beneficial for Indigenous, Black and racialized students but for all students who can benefit from a diverse and inclusive learning environment. As our society continues to diversify, it is essential that we prioritize equity and inclusion,” the school board added.

In a March 10 posting with details on how to register for the job fair, WRDSB stated that a 2019 workforce census and a 2021 student census indicated that only 1.6 of workforce census participants identified as indigenous, while almost three percent of student census participants identified as indigenous.

The school board stated the census identified six percent of students as black, with only 1.2 percent of its teachers identifying the same. It also said there was a gap where 7.9 percent of the workforce identified as “racialized” and/or indigenous, compared to one-third of students indicating that as their ethnicity.

“To address these gaps, we are committing to hiring and supporting more Indigenous, Black and racialized employees,” said the school board.

‘Open to Everyone’

A member of the public wrote the WRDSB, with CBC reporting it was copied on the email and school board’s response.

According to the news outlet, trustee Joanne Weston, in a joint statement with Jeewan Chanicka, the public school board’s director, replied to the member of the public and CBC, stating the job fair, which had been held for three years, was open to everyone.

“The job information fair, like many programs to support the inclusion of marginalized groups, was developed for those who are racialized but open to everyone. There are no discriminatory practices in the WRDSB,” the school board wrote.

WRDSB did not respond to requests for comment, but told CBC it defined “racialized” as “all people that are non-Caucasian in race or non-white, including those who are white-passing, so Black, Asian, biracial, mixed race. [Indigenous] Peoples in Canada are sometimes excluded from this definition, but should not be.”