Trustee barred from GEDSB meetings – bringing issue to Superior Court of Ontario

The Grand Erie District School Board of Trustees has barred a trustee from meetings for a period of time.

In a statement from the board, they say Carol Ann Sloat has posted regrettable and misleading public statements on social media about the Board, Board staff, and her role as Trustee.

These matters are currently the subject of three judicial review applications brought to the Superior Court of Ontario by Trustee Sloat, and on the advice of legal counsel, the Board will not make any further statement at this time.

The full statement can be read here.

Below is a recent public post from Sloat which was shared on her social media page.

“I have proudly served as a member of the Grand Erie District School Board for over 20 years. I take great pride in the responsibility of providing our children with the best possible education while ensuring your tax dollars are spent wisely. I believe this is why you continue to elect me. I am reaching out today to seek guidance from you, not just the voters who elected me but from all of the citizens whose taxes fund our schools.

Recently, things have become very hostile at our Board. The Board has increasingly utilized “in camera” meetings, meetings that mean that you, the public (whose taxes funds the school board), are not allowed to know what’s being discussed. I strongly objected to what I believed to be the overuse of this process. I believe that our discussions should not be hidden from the public, without very good reason. As I have for the past two decades, I attempted to resolve any disagreements internally, through diplomacy. However, despite my best efforts, openness and transparency were pushed aside.

This is where things took a troubling turn.

There are a group of trustees and members of the senior administration team who resent the fact that I have challenged them in my defending your right to know. Despite having received a strong mandate from the voters in the last election, I have been barred from participating in any board business since May 2023. I’m currently barred from Board meetings until the end of February 2024, barred from sitting on any committees until November 2024, and they have gone as far as telling me that I’m not allowed to even watch a public YouTube feed of the Board meetings as a taxpaying member of the publi

c. I have been fighting back because I genuinely believe the students, parents, staff and taxpayers who have a vested interest in the success of the board need my voice at the table.

Over the past months, I have defended you through all legal processes available to me. However, it has become clear to me this group of trustees and members of the senior administration team at the board wish me gone. But they are not the ones who put me on the board – you are.

I shudder to think what this fight is costing our Board, both in terms of wasted hours that could be spent working on our real issues and the cost of paying the numerous lawyers they are keeping busy. But what I do know is that all of the money spent on lawyers is money that could otherwise go to the classroom – rather than fighting to ban a democratically elected school board trustee from fulfilling her mandate.

My question to you is this: do I resign my position to stop the board from taking even more money out of the classroom or do I stay and fight for my constituents and for our students?

I find it near impossible to make this decision autonomously and am hoping for feedback from my constituents. Please contact me at trusteesloat@gmail.com.

Thank you in advance for your feedback and I look forward to hearing from you.

Carol Ann Sloat

Trustee – Grand Erie District School Board”

Written by Matt LeBlanc