Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week

Yes, it’s Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week at KPR.

Many people associated with Peterborough’s school communities have observed that the biggest bullying problems we have at the moment don't originate in the schoolyard, but at the KPR offices on Fisher Drive, and that the culprits are not ten-year-olds in t-shirts and jeans, but fifty-year-olds in business suits.

Wi-Fi.

The “Balanced Day.”

Sucker-punching PCVS.

Silencing teachers.

The sick “Survivor” game pitting Peterborough’s neighbourhoods against one another.

Plans to close more schools.

When will it stop?

In their Parents' Guide to Bullying, KPR defines bullying behaviour in these simple terms: 

• Bullying is a deliberate act.

• There is an intent to harm.

• It is persistent over time.

• There is an imbalance of power.

KPR administration has repeatedly treated the people of Peterborough, the very people who pay their salaries and whom they are meant to serve, with contempt and disrespect.

Community integrity appears to mean little to them. Safety concerns over Wi-Fi have been rudely disregarded. Educational effectiveness has taken a back seat to penny-pinching to free up money to spend on  technology of questionable necessity. The recent secondary school accommodation review, a process designed by the Ministry of Education to encourage community input, was used as a device to divide the people of Peterborough against one another, creating rifts within the community and distracting attention from the real antagonists at Fisher Drive.

KPR's administrators appear to have lost any moral authority to govern our schools they might have once possessed.

When will the bullying stop?

Only when Peterborough’s school communities and other KPR employees realize that we don’t have to follow orders from people whose salaries we pay when those decisions are not in the best interests of the children and young adults of Peterborough.

It’s time to take back our schools.

The decision to close PCVS was made with utter disregard for process, logic, and decency. It was sprung on the Board and public just three days prior to the Board meeting at which Trustees were pressured to ratify it, with the full knowledge that 9 days notice is required for members of the public to address the Board formally. KPR policy has been specifically written to allow administrators to force any school to close with less than one year’s notice, regardless of its enrolment, educational success, or physical condition, as demonstrated in the PCVS case.

No school is safe. Kenner, Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales may be next on the closure list in the drive to consolidate power while weakening Peterborough’s social fabric.

Remember – every bit of KPR’s budget is paid for by our tax dollars. One-third of it comes directly from your municipal property taxes. Peterborough schools are designed to serve you, are paid for by you, and should be run in a manner responsive to your needs.

KPR administrators are not visionaries privy to secrets of the educational universe withheld from the rest of us. We don’t actually need them to make bad decisions for us.

Be a “stand-by-er”, not a bystander.