Toronto District School Board director Donna Quan flatly denies being secretive about her contract. In an exclusive interview with the Toronto Star on Tuesday, Quan rejected a series of accusations from some trustees about secrecy and other issues that are believed to have prompted chair Mari Rutka to seek a meeting with the education minister.

Quan said she has spoken out about trustees and their inappropriate behaviour and feels that’s the reason behind the raucous relations with a handful of them.

“There have been multiple audits and reports and a safety panel report dating back to 2007 which describes a culture of fear” at the board, she said.

“I believe we have a strong senior team who wants to lead with integrity, and when situations arise and we call the question, it’s perhaps a little uncomfortable. I’ve called the question on a couple of things this year, on conduct that may not be the most desirable in terms of interactions with staff and with each other … (but) the culture of fear can only be addressed when the team is willing to take a stand.”

Infighting between the director and some trustees has become so toxic in recent months that Rutka wrote Education Minister Liz Sandals and Premier Kathleen Wynne seeking a meeting to discuss concerns about the tensions. Veteran trustee Irene Atkinson also wrote the premier and Sandals asking that a third party be appointed to investigate the ongoing clashes.

Atkinson told the Star she has lost her confidence in the board’s top staff member after a number of recent incidents, including, she claimed, Quan’s refusal to share her contract with trustees for her performance review.

Quan, who said she has had to deal with complaints about Atkinson’s behaviour, produced minutes from a private meeting in October 2013 that indicate trustees viewed copies of her employment contract, that it was discussed and some changes made, before it was approved.

She said she had also informed Rutka after she replaced outgoing chair Chris Bolton last June that a copy was available in the chair’s office. However, she said Rutka was seeking copies of not only of Quan’s contract but also those of the two former directors. Quan said she could not immediately hand those over because of confidentiality clauses.

Quan, however, said that if Rutka wants to see a copy of her contract, all she has to do is ask.

All other information the trustees have requested has been provided — such as details about leasing agreements with food vendors and other deals — and all agreements and payments are overseen by a number of staff as well as legal counsel, Quan said, to accusations she has withheld documents.

Questions about Quan come amid ongoing turmoil among the trustees, which she said staff can get caught up in.

“Staff sometimes have to take a stand, and when they take a stand based on the balance of evidence … invariably, there will be a side that feels we should have sided with them. But if evidence presents a certain direction, staff have to act in that way. Staff have to be accountable.”

Atkinson openly accused Quan on Tuesday of ongoing “defiance and insubordination” as well as abusive language to trustees at a recent private board meeting, which Quan says is untrue.

Atkinson has also insisted she heard Quan threaten to sue trustee Howard Goodman.

Quan said while she respects Atkinson and the 40 years she has served at the board, that is also untrue.

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“I won’t comment on that just yet,” she said when asked how she was going to respond to the comments and accusations.

“But … I think we have to turn a corner on a CEO being sanctioned for calling out inappropriate conduct. I think to be silenced through vindictive and false statements adds to the culture of fear we are trying to fight.”

Toronto police laid charges last week against Goodman of forcible confinement and criminal harassment against a board employee, widely believed to be Quan.

The dispute leaves the public so confused, a new parent group will ask Wynne to attend the first meeting of the newly elected board Dec. 3, to “set a tone that shows the province cares about this crisis at Ontario’s largest school board.”

“This calls into question — who’s telling the truth?” asked parent Krista Wylie, co-founder of Fixing Our Schools, a new parent network with some 200 members that has written an open letter asking Wynne to step in and help set a fresh, constructive tone at a board in which half its trustees are brand new and the other half deeply divided.

“I don’t know how anyone can expect anything good to come from the board based on the current situation,” Wylie wrote.

Sandals says she’s “concerned” once again about troubles in the board, but said she will meet with Rutka before month’s end to hear the concerns first-hand.

“Obviously I am concerned when I have any school board that has a level of distress,” Sandals said Tuesday, noting the province did not hesitate to send in advisers and the consulting firm Ernst and Young to clear up controversy in the audit committee a year ago.

Trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher, a firm supporter of Quan, said the accusations are from a small group of trustees who “don’t like her and want her gone.”

Quan said she is hopeful a more collaborative and calm atmosphere will prevail when a new board takes office next month.

In recent months, Quan and senior board educators have written letters of concern about harassment and intimidation from trustees; one trustee, Elizabeth Moyer, was found by an outside investigator — high profile employment lawyer Janice Rubin, asked to lead an investigation at the CBC into the Jian Ghomeshi situation — to have sexually harassed two senior staffers; and the board’s freedom of information officer has alleged trustees tampered and interfered with expense documents requested by the Star. Senior board staff also wrote to Rutka after a meeting where they felt members of the public making deputations to the board weren’t treated with respect.

As for Quan’s contract, according to the minutes of the October 2013 private meeting, 18 trustees attended; absent were Irene Atkinson, Elizabeth Moyer, Stephnie Payne and David Smith.

They were each provided with what’s called a “library copy” of Quan’s contract, which they were told to return when the meeting ended. The approved contract began Oct. 9, 2013 and ends June 30, 2017. Atkinson, however, said that in the past, copies of director’s contracts have been more accessible to trustees.