Question 1 – Zone 5 Responses
Will you act to postpone the appointment of a new OCDSB director? If no, what are your reasons? If yes, what are your reasons and how will you act?
Submissions:
– C.J Blake
– Rob Campbell
C.J Blake – Yes
I agree that the decision should be postponed for the new board to decide. The new board may value certain characteristics or lived experiences more than the current board.
Candidates are currently hearing the opinions of parents and students on many issues, opinions that may be greater or lesser than those of four years ago when the current board was elected. It is important that these concerns are taken into consideration when hiring for such an influential position.
Although it is within their right to hire a new director of education, I encourage the creation of a committee with newly elected board members as of the Oct 22 election. This engages us in the hiring process and prepares us to hire quickly before the current director departs.
Rob Campbell – No
The current Board has decided when to appoint and the appointment process to be used. I don’t know where each Trustee stands on the question, and why. I believe there are pros and cons to the current plan to appoint early Fall for a January 2019 start of a new Director.
It would not make sense to have the outgoing Board develop a candidate profile and vet candidates, and the new Board appoint: framers and evaluators should be accountable as the decision-makers. Deferring the process to the Spring, under the new Board, using an interim internal Director, and appointing for mid-summer or September would have been the other real option.
In my view, whatever the pros and cons one sees here, it is now too late to defer the process as it will have already started, advertisements will have gone out and candidate applications will have been received, or soon will be, and where candidates have advertised a timeframe. Indeed, the effective retirement date itself could have been negotiated in camera as part of this plan.
The in camera HR consultant advice provided to the Board may also have been that a January is the right time to make appoint for, as it might yield the greatest number of good candidates if this is the most common Director hire/transition point in Ontario – there will be a most common transition point, though I don’t know what it is.
Pros and cons
- Having a new Director start mid-school year must be more difficult for the successful candidate as they need to continue to act in their current role, while learning about the new one, and where the same goes for their replacement. This argues for a September 2019 appointment, allowing people to close off the year and to take the summer to transition and start fresh. This is not nearly as big a concern if the successful candidate is an internal one, as they will largely already know the District and Board, and can job shadow. A mid-year transition may favour internal candidates then, and perhaps unduly act to narrow the field, so this may be a risk, but note my speculation about most common Ontario hire/transition point in Ontario above as well. The considerations noted here are important ones – I’d rate getting applications for a maximum number of qualified candidates internally and externally as of High importance, but without the required HR consultant briefing on how to maximize this, it’s hard to evaluate (rf the Summary below).
- In its first year, and indeed starting Winter 2019 I believe, the new Board needs to set its multi-year strategic plan. Ideally, the new Director will have been consulted in the setting of that plan. Though the plan is the Board’s, ideally both Board and Director will be fully committed to it and understand the dialogue context in which it was born. This could be important for Director accountability to the Board, and performance review for meeting the goals of the plan, i.e. if they were the Director for the plan since the start. My platform notes the importance of Director accountability for achieving the goals set out in the Board’s strat plan. I rate the importance of this consideration, against deferral, as High.
- The outgoing Board almost certainly objectively will be more competent over all to assess and appoint than the incoming one, simply in terms of understanding themselves the Director role, hopefully the Trustee role, having had the time to reflect on their current Director, maybe talk with Trustees at other DSB about their Directors, etc. I rate the importance of this consideration, against deferral, as Moderate.
- The incoming Board may not feel personally invested in the outgoing Board’s appointment decision however, nor see themselves as accountable to the public for the decision of the past Board. Perhaps as well they might have preferred that a different candidate profile or screening criteria be used. The new Director themselves may be uncertain as to their actual initial support amongst the whole Board. Indeed, if contentious, or if the political gap amongst outgoing Board members is large, then the outgoing Board’s vote could have been split, in which case maybe better to wait for a fresh start to a new Board. For a variety of reasons, there is a somewhat increased risk then that Director support / non-support over time could cleave along certain lines if the Board-Director relationship were to come under strain. It is likely though that the Board and Director will proactively work to develop a good relationship as soon as possible and recognize their commitment to each other. There are always various potential fault lines amongst Board members which create risk, and many decisions made by past Boards a new one has to deal with of course, though this is a harder decision to reverse or undo than many. I rate the importance of these considerations, over all for deferral, as Moderate-High.
- The ‘District stability’ argument against an interim Director, I simply rate as silly, and have not weighted.
Summary
As I need to set consideration ‘a’ aside pending the possibility of further reliable information, I come out over all against deferral. If I was authoritatively informed that the January hire point was significantly optimal for maximizing the number of quality internal and external candidates, then my over all assessment would bedecidedly in favour of not deferring. If told that there was nothing special about a January transition, i.e. a neutral consideration, I’d still be slightly in favour of not deferring. If told that another time indeed was much better for maximizing good candidates internally and externally then I’d tip in favour of deferral. Considerations ‘a’ and ‘b’ loom largest for me: i.e. maximize pool of quality candidates, and holding the new Director fully to account for the new Board’s strat plan.
However, as noted at the start, the point is now moot also, in my view. The Board decided to proceed as it has and, barring sufficiently grave offsetting concerns, it now would be unwise and perhaps unfair to punt a process already well under way several months into the future – indeed not a great advertisement in Ontario for a new Director!
As a result, I will be taking no actions beyond having researched the matter, worked out my own thinking with respect to it, and made this thinking publicly available for scrutiny.
I certainly remain open to dialogue on the subject however, and look forward at some point to reviewing the opinions and arguments of other candidates on the matter.