Taxpayer Cost of DEI at the Thames Valley District School Board

A staggering taxpayer cost for no benefit and lots of negatives.

I just retired from the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB). I worked there for thirty years: twenty-five as an elementary teacher, teaching mostly grades six through eight, and the final five years as a vice-principal. I worked with some incredible teachers and administrators, many that were average, and a few that were downright awful. I’m sure what I’m saying here can be said of most workplaces.

Things are not good in public education. No one who has been in it for ten years says it has gotten better, and everyone I know say it’s worse than it used to be a decade ago. No one talks about it openly. Instead, they whisper to each other of the problems which they are afraid to speak out loud. They are seeing injustices, unfair treatment, increases in violence and its tolerance, unequal application of the law, and they dare not speak out publicly. They’re afraid of being hauled into HR, of having pay deducted, of having their name brought forward to the College of Teachers, and of losing their teaching licence, their job, and all the fallout that comes with it.

Many of these problems started after the implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion, known as DEI, or sometimes EDI or DIE. Ironically, it’s the last acronym that seems most relevant, for DEI has not had the outcomes it intended. In fact, it has had the opposite.

The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy¹ wrote an article that found that the research into DEI and the majority of those involved in such training have arrived at the same conclusion: when it comes to harmony and tolerance, DEI does not make things better, but it can make things worse. Click here to read it. Here are its main points:

• Diversity training in practice: aggressive, and justified by circular “proofs”;

• A disconnect between DEI claims and DEI outcomes;

• DEI does have an impact… but it’s not positive;

• The language and practice of division: DEI’s inequitable treatment and impact.

So just how much money is the TVDSB spending each year on DEI, for a program that at best makes nothing better, and at worst makes things worse? In other words, how much of your taxpayer money is the TVDSB wasting on DEI?

Here’s the DEI department at Thames Valley for the 2022-2023 school year.

Source

Let’s look at the annual salaries of four of these five individuals, found on the Ontario Sunshine List.² The fifth person does not make $100,000 a year and therefore is not on the list.

1. Purveen Skinner, superintendent: $172,670

2. Andrea Marlowe, human rights policy advisor: $140,906

3. Rheba Moore-Nash, system principal: $117,342

4. Matt Sereda, secondary teacher: $114,948

If you tally this up, the TVDSB was paying $545,866 per year, not including Ms. Gallacher whose salary is unknown. So this number is actually higher. This was in 2023, and the Equity Team was posted for all to see.

However, there have been some changes and the cost of the Equity department has gone up. It’s much harder to find who’s on the Equity team now; the Board seems to be coy about posting it. However, it has posted its senior administration, which you can find here. Scroll through that list and you’ll find two people, plus two assistants.

Below you’ll find a list of who’s currently on the TVDSB Equity Team, with their 2024 salaries, that I was able to confirm with contacts still in the board as of the time this article was posted.

1. Andrew Canham, Superintendent (Portfolio - Equity) - $218,733

2. Michelle D. Young, Human Rights and Equity Advisor - $178,143

3. Matthew Sereda, Secondary Teacher - $116,548

4. Nichole Soucie, Executive Assistant of Superintendent Canham - $???

5. Dawn Brereton-Young, Executive Legal Assistant to Michelle Young - $???

If you use the average wage of $25/hour for an executive assistant in the TVDSB in 2024, the annual salary is about $52,000 a year if working full time. So, adding two of those, we’re looking at about $613,424 a year for the Equity department!³ For nothing!⁴

But it’s actually worse than that. How? It’s the opportunity costs of the choices not made, the cost of not spending time and effort on other things. Administrators attend meetings, called Community of Schools (CoS) meetings, to talk about DEI, among many other issues. Time is spent on DEI’s implementation when it could be spent on other problems. It’s part of the board’s safe schools plans and its student achievement plans. Each school must spend time developing these plans and include DEI in them, and then answer to a superintendent when that person visits the school three times a year.

School administrators are forced to spend time during staff meetings, PD Days, and occasional meetings during the day discussing, implementing, and revising DEI policies, as required by senior administration. That’s not all the meetings are spent on, but some of it is. You would hope they spent time on more pressing issues, like student achievement in a particular subject at that school, identified as needing attention. For example, a common issue in almost all TVDSB schools is math.

Did you know that student math scores in the TVDSB are tanking? Check out this article from the London Free Press, from Nov 9, 2024: Trustees fret over poor math scores at Thames Valley schools: 'Unacceptable' These trustees think DEI is helping students. It isn’t. It’s because precious time is being wasted on DEI instead of looking at scientific studies that show how to increase student achievement in math. In my five years as a school administrator, do you know how many times scientific studies about math achievement were discussed?

And to put the icing on the cake, the Board is in debt, to the tune of $16.5 million.⁵ Let’s spell that out so you have a really good sense of how your tax dollars are being spent: $16,500,000!

Do you think this is a good use of taxpayer money, when DEI, at best, has no effect, and at worst, does the opposite of what’s intended? Do you like how your money is being spent on this? Are you going to let this go unchallenged?

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What Can Be Done?

I’m a political candidate for the People’s Party of Canada (PPC), a federal party. One of our platforms deals with DEI. The PPC will:

• Abolish all federal DEI programs and policies in the public service and in federal institutions such as the Armed Forces, as well as those that apply to federally regulated industries;

• Prohibit DEI training sessions in all federal institutions;

• Remove all DEI clauses imposed on institutions, organizations, associations and businesses as a condition to obtain federal subsidies, grants, loans, scholarships, services, or contracts.

• Stop funding groups that promote the DEI ideology;

• In all legal proceedings, narrowly interpret section 15(2) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in a manner that proscribes all forms of discrimination.

But that is just the federal level. To get rid of DEI, you must deal with it at the provincial and trustee levels as well. Education is the domain of the provinces and therefore the best target to remove DEI from public schools. You need to contact your local MPP as well as the leader of the current provincial government, and tell them that if they leave DEI policies in place, you will vote for a party that will remove them. In fact, tell all the parties. Although DEI was brought in by a Liberal government, it has been left there and strengthened by a Conservative government. So no, the Conservatives won’t save you - unless you threaten them with voting for someone else. Click here for a current list of all Ontario MPPs and their contact information. Enter your postal code and voila, there’s your MPP. Click on the person to get the contact info. Include the premier in your email as well.

Finally, reach out to the school board trustee in your area, let them know your thoughts, and tell them that you will only vote for someone who will remove DEI from all areas of the school board and its policies. Share with them the Aristotle Foundation paper above. Tell them they are spending $613,424 a year for nothing. Click here for a list of TVDSB trustees, their contact info, and their area. Don’t just email your trustee, email them all. Create an email group in your preferred email platform, enter them into it, and then use it for future emails so it’s easier to repeat in the future. Get your friends and family to do the same.

Now, this is a bit tricky, for the Board is required by the province - a Conservative government - to have DEI. But the province doesn’t say how many people should be in the department, or what DEI must look like. Surely there is a much cheaper way of doing this, until it gets abolished by a provincial government? If you have such an idea, include it in the comments! Just keep it civil please!

Remember, the world is ruled by people who show up, at every single level of policy making. Hence our problem. Too many people are not showing up, not getting involved. Can you afford to not take action? Can your children afford you not taking five minutes to email a trustee and MPP?

1. The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy is a new think tank that aims to renew a civil, common-sense approach to public discourse and public policy in Canada. Its vision: A Canada where the sacrifices and successes of past generations are cherished and built upon; where citizens value each other for their character and merit; and where open inquiry and free expression are prized as the best path to a flourishing future for all.

2. https://www.sunshinelist.ca/#individuals

3. Since the wages aren’t on the Ontario Sunshine List, I queried Grok to come up with the average of $52,000 a year. ChatGBT 4.0, when asked the same question, came up with $65,688 per year. To err on the side of caution I used the lower number.

4. It should be noted that these staff work on things other than just equity. But how much more productive could they be if equity was taken off their plate?

5. https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/thames-valley-school-board-deficit-spikes-again-even-after-deep-cuts