Second OCDSB trustee resigns, board begins appointment process

After five years on the Ottawa Carleton District School Board (OCDSB), Justine Bell is walking away from her seat.

The OCDSB accepted the resignations of Bell and Nili Kaplan-Myrth at a meeting Monday night, voting to begin the  process for filling their vacant seats.

Bell, the Zone 10 trustee for the Somerset area, told her community Friday that she was resigning effective June 30. 

Bell said she was proud of the work the district has done but now wanted to put her family first, having recently adopted a daughter with her husband from his hometown in Mexico.

"Balancing life as a woman, mother, wife, full-time professional, and trustee hasn't always been easy — especially as my husband and I were trying to grow our family," Bell wrote in her resignation letter.

'Toxicity' 

Bell also cited what she said was a toxic environment on the board as well as structural challenges, though she didn't offer specifics. 

Instead, Bell reminded her colleagues of who they're supposed to serve.

"Remember that it's about the students." Bell said. "Remember that we have the power to make a real difference and not to focus on the petty issues that come up behind the scenes and to treat each other with respect."

Zone 9 Trustee Kaplan-Myrth resigned on June 4, alleging the board was "entrenched in internal toxicity."

Bell told CBC after the meeting that "Kaplan-Myrth went through some significant trauma on this board, both inside the boardroom and outside the boardroom."

She said the toxicity stems from the "white supremacist structural realities" the board is dealing with.

"Students that come from racialized and traditionally marginalized communities continue to struggle and continue to not succeed," Bell said, referencing statistics. "And we continue to do the same thing year after year after year."

Bell pointed to the installation of Indigenous graduation coaches as an example of a concrete action that "touched the lives of students".

She continued: "That's what we need to be focused on. And unfortunately, we're not getting the funding we need do that important work."

Provincial underfunding is a significant challenge, Bell said.

The board recently passed a budget with $18.1 million in budget cuts. However, Bell abstained from voting on that budget last week.

She told CBC she couldn't vote on a budget that didn't consult community members.

The OCDSB staff received the technical papers later than usual, around the end of May, and scrambled to prepare a budget for the board to vote on before the summer break at the end of June.

It passed at a special board meeting on June 17th.

The appointment process

Last July, former Zone 2 trustee Alysha Aziz resigned for personal reasons. She was replaced by Julia Fortey, who was appointed at a special board meeting in October and still represents the Kanata area.

Replacements for Bell and Kaplan-Myrth will be appointed by a similar process.

Typically, the board will accept applications from any interested adult residing in Ottawa, even if they live outside the zone boundaries of the vacant seat. The applicants will then be vetted for eligibility.

Eligible applicants will give a five minute presentation at a special board meeting on September 16. The board will then appoint the next trustee from the pool of applicants for each zone at the September 23 board meeting.