A York Region trustee is alleged to have pressured senior staff to boost her daughter’s marks so she could get into a competitive university program, the Star has learned.

The request from Trustee Linda Aversa and higher-ups was so intense, according to a school board source, that senior staff spent multiple hours of their workday over a two-week period discussing it.

“She should have known better,” said a source with inside knowledge of the incident involving the trustee, who represents Wards 3 and 4 in Vaughan. “She used her access to petition for her daughter.”

Aversa said the allegations are incorrect and she never asked for marks to be raised.

“As any parent would, I did have appropriate dialogue with my daughter’s school about her education, but I have never asked anyone to boost her marks.”

The allegations of trustee interference come as the York Region District School Board faces ongoing concern about how it is being run, increasing discontent among staff and an unusually high number of resignations of well-respected senior managers. The Star also recently revealed how trustees secretly voted their new and relatively inexperienced director an unprecedented 10-year contract.

The behaviour and influence of some trustees across the GTA, who are elected by the public, has long been a headache for the province. Months after troubleshooter Margaret Wilson’s hard-hitting report on improving the “culture of fear” in the Toronto District School Board, including clarifying the role of trustees, similar issues are surfacing in York.

A growing number of parents and employees say it’s time the province turns its attention north of Toronto, and have been sharing their concerns with the education ministry.

“The culture of fear is snowballing within the schooling community,” wrote York parent Rukshan Para in an email to Education Minister Liz Sandals in March. “(The) third largest school board in this province seems like a dysfunctional board.”

A spokesperson in Sandals’ office said the ministry has “received some correspondence regarding this matter (on the complaints of governance, culture of fear) and is currently reviewing.”

According to multiple sources, Aversa approached staff at her daughter’s high school last June to ask if they could raise a mark she needed to get into a competitive business program.

Aversa first went to the teacher, and then to the principal of Emily Carr Secondary School in Woodbridge, the Star was told. But when her requests were rejected, she took her complaints to superintendent Becky Green to see if there was any way her daughter’s final grade for a math class could be boosted to an A — a mark she needed to help get accepted into the prestigious program, according to a source.

Green told the Star that while she cannot discuss parents or students for privacy reasons, the allegations are “categorically incorrect.”

However, sources said the request was repeated numerous times over a month and during two of those weeks, requests were made multiple times a day. For staff dealing with the issue, it “occupied more of their time than it should have,” one source said.

Sources also said Green was “getting pressure from above” to look into it. After nearly a month of constant questioning, the superintendent “held her ground” and would not change the mark, sources say.

Soon after, Green was transferred to another jurisdiction within the board. While some say her expertise was required in that area, others believe it was a retaliatory move.

Via email, a spokesman for director of education J. Philip Parappally said “the allegations in your email are false. The director has and will continue to support superintendents of schools, through their respective associate directors, in responding to parents’ questions and concerns in a manner that is consistent, fair, equitable and in alignment with all relevant board policies and legislation.”

Green was reached twice by the Star and did not wish to comment, but later agreed to speak by phone after the board’s communications office intervened. She said she was moved to the central region last fall after nine months in the west region, was not surprised by the change and was “happy about the move.”

When asked about the trustee’s alleged interference, school principal Paolo Burzese declined to comment and referred the Star to the board’s communications office.

Michael Barrett, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, said he advises trustees to stay away from any such discussions with their children’s school so “there’s not even so much as a perceived conflict.”

“I can tell you what I’ve done myself — and I’ve had six kids in the system — I’ve always lived by the rule that as a trustee you are certainly able to attend your child’s events and things of that nature, that’s not a problem,” said Barrett, a trustee for 14 years in the Durham District School Board.

“But I always separate the role of trustee from the role of parent, so if there were issues at the school or with my child, I never attended those meetings. My wife always went to deal with those issues.

“I suggest that’s a good rule to follow” and what elected officials in his board are told when they take office, he added.

For many, this much-talked-about incident is indicative of how the climate within the York board has changed since Parappally’s arrival.

“We have nothing to do with grades,” said Joel Hertz, a former trustee, who said he, like many others in the board, had heard about the incident, but did not have first-hand knowledge of it.

“The only true responsibility trustees have is hiring the director and figuring out how to pay him,” said Hertz, who in his 10 years as a trustee, said he couldn’t recall a similar incident.

Hertz said York trustees undergo training and are expected to follow a code of conduct that specifically calls out this behaviour.

“A trustee shall not use his or her office to advance his or her interests or the interests of any family member or person or organization with whom or with which the trustee is related or associated,” said the code.

He said he is troubled by the story, and that so many people in the board knew about the incident. “The more people I talked to, the more this story seems to be a well-known fact,” he said, adding he was concerned at the time that the penalties for trustees breaching the code were too lax.

Suzanne Craig, the TDSB’s newest integrity commissioner appointed to provide advice on the code of conduct and trustee obligations under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, says the traditional system of reporting grievances against a trustee and director can be problematic.

“If the quarrel is with the very person that is stated in the process that will deal with it, you have a problem.” said Craig, who stressed she was speaking generally and did not have any knowledge of the incident, nor affiliation with the York school board. “And what it does is, it puts a chill across the institution, because the complainant knows they have no protection,” she said.

In the Toronto public board, trustees in the past have come under fire for sending their assistant in to classrooms to observe teachers or pressuring senior staff to move preferred principals or superintendents to their ward. In one case, former Scarborough Southwest trustee Liz Moyer asked senior staff to hire her daughters for a summer program that provided jobs for at-risk youth.

While it is not uncommon for parents to approach teachers or principals about their children’s marks, it is unusual for such issues to be dealt with by a superintendent or for such requests to be made so persistently. And typically, teachers or principals would be open to altering a mark if a student showed sufficient understanding of the curriculum overall.

The parent group in York, calling itself the Coalition for Good Governance in YRDSB, has sent an open letter to parents, parent councils and the province calling for the resignation of chair Anna DeBartolo and several other trustees, saying they are “concerned about poor governance and leadership” within the board.

In recent stories, the Star outlined how Parappally’s leadership style and decade-long contract have raised eyebrows and contributed to growing tensions at the board. DeBartolo has told the Star the 10-year contract was needed to bring long-term stability. Across Ontario, contracts are typically five years.

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Para, who ran for trustee in 2014, recalls when he went door-to-door campaigning, many asked him about why there was a need for trustees.

In light of recent findings, he admits he can’t help but ask the same thing.

“Are the trustees even acting on behalf of their constituents?” he said. “I am not sure.”

Lifting the lid on directors’ contracts:

The Star requested contracts for all directors of education in public boards across Greater Toronto via freedom-of-information legislation. Where contracts were not released or were redacted, the Star has appealed to the provincial privacy office:

Durham District School Board:

Refused to release contract of Martyn Beckett on several grounds, including that it would violate his privacy. According to Ontario’s Sunshine List, however, Beckett earned $197,878.70 and taxable benefits of $661.65 in 2015. He recently left the board to become assistant deputy minister in the learning and curriculum division of the provincial education ministry.

Halton District School Board:

Released contract of Director Stuart Miller, though all details regarding pay, benefits and vacation were blacked out — including his salary and benefits, which according to the province’s Sunshine List totalled $224,693 in 2015, when he was associate director for most of the year before being promoted to the helm. Outgoing director David Euale earned $242,260.

Peel District School Board:

The first board to respond, calling the Star one week after the request was sent, and a week later providing Tony Pontes’ contract, in full. His four-year contract includes $249,311.50 in salary, a $10,000 yearly car allowance as well as seven weeks’ annual vacation. In 2015, he had $11,696.92 in taxable benefits, according to Ontario’s Sunshine List.

Toronto District School Board:

The board posted the contract of interim director John Malloy on its website this month, noting Malloy will earn $272,000 a year. The first term of his contract runs until July 2017 and he is entitled to six weeks of vacation and 10 “lieu” days.

York Region District School Board:

Initially, the board said it had to issue third-party notice to J. Philip Parappally, but then released his contract, with some portions blacked out — including the length of the contract, which the board has previously publicly stated is 10 years, as well as his salary, which in 2015 was $268,267.75 with $13,568.35 in taxable benefits, according to the Sunshine List.

Trustees who’ve ruffled feathers:

Some GTA school-board trustees who have attracted controversy in recent years:

Elizabeth Moyer: The former Toronto trustee was officially reprimanded by the board in 2014 after an independent investigator found she sexually harassed two senior staff members by touching one inappropriately and making a suggestive comment to another. In 2013, emails obtained by the Star showed she asked a superintendent to inquire about hiring her daughter for a board-run program meant for at-risk teens. Both her daughters worked in the program the previous summer.

David Smith: The Toronto trustee came under fire for his attendance, with records showing he either phoned in for meetings or didn’t attend most. In 2013, he went to seven meetings, missed three and phoned in for 12, more than half the board meetings that year. In 2015, he was ousted from office for failing to file his campaign expenses on time. After appealing the matter in court, he was allowed to return.

Frank D’Amico: In 2011, the Toronto Catholic trustee publicly apologized for comments he made, saying they were “insensitive.” A student had written to him about a woman whose family member was not allowed to enrol in three Catholic high schools because he didn’t have immigration papers. D’Amico replied that the student’s aunt was “lucky I didn’t answer the phone because my first call would be to Immigration Canada . . . (I want to remind you of) 9/11. Sept. 11, the day that changed the world . . . I am forward (sic) your concern to the RCMP and to Immigration Canada.”

Alice Anne LeMay: In 2011, the then-Halton Catholic board chair remarked that gay-straight alliances in schools do not fit the teachings of the Catholic Church. She also said the board does not allow “Nazi groups” for the same reason. She later apologized on the board’s website.

Noor Javed covers York Region for the Star and can be reached at njaved@thestar.ca

Kristin Rushowy is an education reporter and can be reached at krushowy@thestar.ca

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