Justine Bell
“It is what it is” – and leadership is about how you come to terms with it. Knowing when to listen, speak out, organize, and concede.
When it comes to safety, to ensuring a sense of security in our community, I believe that it’s about taking every opportunity to intentionally act.
Over the past few months, it has been a challenging honour to serve as the OCDSB Trustee for Somerset/Kitchissippi. The safety of our community has been compromised repeatedly.
It has been hard. I don’t want to rehash what our community has gone through, but I would like to share with you what I have done with the trust that has been placed in me.
With the convoy occupying our neighbourhood, I heard from so many parents about sleepless nights, about fear, about aggression and symbols of hate showing up in front of our schools.
For weeks, I worked behind the scenes to ensure that our schools were safe, to have the OCDSB proactively communicate with our community, and to rally support for prioritizing protecting our kids.
Reaching out to union leaders, educators, fellow trustees, councillors, our MPP, media, and our local health organizations, I was comforted to know that so many were using their power intentionally.
Did we succeed in our endeavours? I’m sure everyone has their own perspective and my hope is that we will learn from it, be held accountable for our actions, and do better.
One concrete outcome on my side was a revision to our safe schools’ policies: the inclusion of a commitment to undertake an after-action review with community stakeholders after a crisis.
And then masks were up for debate in schools. In an ideal world, yes, we should have confidence that the province will prioritize the safety and security of children, and that their decisions will be evidence-based.
I listened to the Children’s Health Coalition (a collective of children’s health organizations including Ontario children’s hospitals, Children’s Mental Health Ontario, Empowered Kids Ontario, and Kids Health Alliance), to CHEO, to the doctors in our community, and to parents of medically fragile children.
I brought forth an emergency motion to continue mandating masks in schools until at least two weeks after the March break, aligned with the Coalition’s recommendation.
I worked behind the scenes again to garner support, to get others to intentionally act… The motion failed on a tie. Some of my fellow trustees wanted to place their trust in the province, and like all of us, want things to get back to normal.
As I write this on Easter weekend, COVID-19 cases are soaring, classes are closing in Ottawa, and the motion to mandate masks was reintroduced and passed!
We aren’t back to normal yet, it is what it is – your OCDSB leadership has listened, learned and acted!
Justine Bell is the OCDSB trustee for Zone 10.