{"id":33877,"date":"2023-11-30T12:19:23","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T17:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=33877"},"modified":"2023-12-07T19:00:56","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T00:00:56","slug":"aurora-trustee-crowe-takes-the-helm-of-the-york-catholic-district-school-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-trustee-crowe-takes-the-helm-of-the-york-catholic-district-school-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora trustee Crowe takes the helm of the York Catholic District School Board"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Elizabeth Crowe is back at the helm of the York Catholic District School Board (YCDSB) after being appointed Chair last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crowe, who serves as Catholic Education Trustee for Aurora, King, and Whitchurch-Stouffville returns to the position, with Maria Iafrate being acclaimed Vice Chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crowe replaces Frank Alexander in the Chair after a fraught term, one which most recently saw ongoing controversy over whether to raise the Progress Pride flag at YCDSB buildings during the month of June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The November 20 Chair election came down to two nominees from the floor: Crowe and Alexander, each of whom was given two minutes to make their case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I am honoured to be elected this evening, my commitment is not to lead but to serve using the example of Jesus washing the feet of his apostles,\u201d said Crowe. \u201cI will strive to ensure that all trustees have the information they need to make strategic decisions during these difficult times that we face. This is key as we keep our focus on the multi-year strategic plan and addressing the Board deficit without impacting student achievement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe all welcome the Ministry audit and their impartial recommendation for efficiencies. Our community has told us that they have waited long enough and I will work with the Vice Chair and Director to bring to the Board an equity plan based on our \u2018We Are Diverse, We Are One in Christ.\u2019 I ask my fellow trustees for your support.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexander kept his comments brief, adding: \u201cMy request to my fellow trustees to support me is simply this: I stand for God and for His glory and the service of His children and that\u2019s all I do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement following the vote, Chair Crowe said she was \u201chonoured\u201d at the appointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of a new term, controversy followed the appointment, with questions being raised about how the vote was conducted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a subsequent meeting held on Thursday to address the issue, irregularities were recognized by Director of Education Dominic Scuglia, and the Board\u2019s \u201cAppointed Parliamentarian\u201d Gillian Tuck Kutarna of Miller Thomson, stating she made an error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was my error and not anything the Board of Trustees was responsible for,\u201d she said. \u201cI know you made considerable efforts over the years to ensure that your process is fair and that it is not only fair to the candidates but seen to be fair. It was to that end that you decided to email your votes as a way of making sure that your process was beyond reproach. Unfortunately, in my case, it was not beyond human error, so my apologies again for my part in that and thank you for the opportunity to express that tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scuglia reinforced this by adding, \u201cthe error came from a third-party agency outside of the YCDSB. The Trustees and the senior team want to assure the public that they can continue to have complete confidence in how our election was conducted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a result of Monday, we have reviewed our process again and made changes to ensure that what transpired is not repeated. We apologize as well for any inconvenience or confusion caused by this error.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the apology and clarification, another vote was taken with two rounds of voting resulting in Crowe and Alexander tying with five votes each. After the second round, the tie was broken with the drawing of lots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each candidate put a ballot with their name into the box with the name being drawn out of the box eliminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After his name was eliminated and the formal meeting began under Crowe, Alexander called on the Board to dig deeper into the process through a Notice of Motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think Monday\u2019s session was disturbing enough that requires an investigation beyond the remarks from the former scrutineer to say that it was a glitch,\u201d said Alexander before reading his motion into the minutes. \u201cThat the Board authorize the Chair to write a letter to the York Regional Police requesting that they launch an investigation into the conduct of the election process held on Monday, November 20, 2023, to determine whether there was any misfeasance committed in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The motion was carried unanimously without discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe police will be investigating,\u201d said Crowe ahead of this week\u2019s Board meeting. \u201cThe letter was written and the police will launch an investigation. It doesn\u2019t mean that we felt there was anything untoward, but we just all wanted to make sure. We owe it to the public to make sure that [human error] was all it was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking forward, Crowe said there might have been a perception of a \u201cdivided board\u201d over the past year, but \u201c90 to 95 per cent of the motions we deal with\u201d were passed unanimously, and there\u2019s wide-ranging support for budgets, addressing the YCDSB\u2019s deficit, upcoming multi-year strategic plan, and policy governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn all of those things, we\u2019re pretty well focused in the same direction,\u201d she says. \u201cYes, there were some contentious issues last year and everybody got very heated about that, but that is a democracy and, in the end, we have a vote and we stand by that vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On her message to students, she said the Board is fortunate this year to have three student trustees and, from there, there are many leadership opportunities within schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know students are passionate and what they really want is the student voice and the schools to be safe and caring,\u201d says Crowe, adding that while the Pride flag issue was divisive, an Equity Plan is coming forward to ensure that all students are represented. \u201cThe data that we have coming in [shows us] that there are kids in our schools who are disenfranchised, they don\u2019t feel welcome and there are a lot of mental health issues \u2013 and it\u2019s not just COVID issues \u2013 and we need to address that. As a Board, we have to put something together that will actually have an impact, not just something on paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSurvey responses (from students) are telling us something and we need to listen. Maybe they can be part of the solution as well because that would be the most viable solution, and the one that would be most successful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Crowe is back at the helm of the York Catholic District School Board (YCDSB) after being appointed Chair last week. Crowe, who serves as Catholic Education Trustee for Aurora, King, and Whitchurch-Stouffville returns to the position, with Maria Iafrate being acclaimed Vice Chair. Crowe replaces Frank Alexander in the Chair after a fraught term, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8Op","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 12:16:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}