As Chief Education Officer and Chief Executive Officer of the school board, the Director of Education provides leadership that promotes student achievement and well-being, as well as the growth and success of the organization. Appraising the performance of the Director is an important duty of the board of trustees – Ontario’s Education Act states that each board of trustees is expected to monitor and evaluate the performance of their board’s Director of Education (or the Supervisory Officer acting as the Director).

OESC will work with your board to develop a policy outlining a process for the performance review of the Director. We offer workshops and consultation to cooperatively develop a performance appraisal procedure that engages trustees and the director in a collaborative approach with key performance metrics.

Contact Us to learn how OESC can support your board.

Compass for Success is a collaboration of school boards working together to build capacity to use data to improve student achievement. It represents the collective development of technologies within a framework focused on research-driven data to allow teachers, superintendents, directors and principals the ability to see and use the data in a way that will help students succeed.

Recently, Compass for Success has added additional solutions to support teachers, including a comprehensive K-12 Gradebook fully aligned to growing success. This compliments the highly praised Compass Teacher Portal which is being utilized across thousands of classrooms in Ontario, giving teachers access to all the data they need to inform their practice and help students succeed. Administrators value the new solution launched this year to help deliver timely information directly to their email inbox. Principals and administrators can easily identify students to follow and received updated information automatically, including attendance, achievement, community hours and credit accumulation to name a few data sets. This data is then incorporated into their electronic Board and School Improvement Plans and supports the plan, act, assess model. Compass continues to deliver a comprehensive and all-encompassing solution for teachers, administrators, system leads and senior administrators to support data-driven school improvement using leading edge technology.

Visit Compass for Success here.

OESC understands that selecting a new Director of Education is among the most important decisions a board of trustees can make during its term of office. Consistent, high-quality leadership from the Director of Education is a key factor in the success of a school board in meeting its priorities.

Our organization can advise and assist school boards with the recruitment and selection process – allowing trustees to be fully engaged as governors and direction setters while we undertake the planning and detailed work that goes into selecting an exceptional candidate who can successfully meet the needs of the board, staff, students and communities for years to come.

We have assembled a team of highly skilled and respected educators to lead the Director of Education recruitment process. Our consultants truly understand the needs and experiences of the education sector and maintain excellent networks to identify potential candidates across on the province.

Our team members offer a high degree of personalized service, unparalleled respect for the role of the board and a commitment to excellence in executive recruiting.

Contact Us for more information.

The Behaviour Management Systems program is a training program written by educators, for use by educators in school settings, with emphases on understanding behaviour patterns, building strong rapport, early awareness of potential problems, and early, non-physical interventions designed to calm and de-escalate student behaviour before violence occurs. The emphasis is on understanding and changing behaviour, rather than simply controlling it. It is a systems approach to training in effective behaviour management techniques that promotes the creation of strong school teams.

This training – delivered locally and employing a cost-effective train the trainer model – is appropriate for all board staff that come in contact with students.  Launched in August 2006, over 80% of the English-speaking boards and 75% of the French-speaking boards in the province of Ontario have adopted BMS as their core training program.

Learn more here or Contact Us for information.

Identifying and addressing systemic inequity together through data-driven analysis of policies, training, programs, and services.

Contact us to learn how OESC can support your board.

OESC has a team of professional meeting and event planners ready to support your board in the planning, production and delivery of events, meetings, retreats and conferences. From conception to on-site management, OESC delivers events that will resonate with your audience and deliver measurable results to your board.

As always, profit is not a motive for OESC. Our event management services help boards fulfill their meeting & event mandates cost effectively.

OESC maintains a roster of experienced facilitators available to offer professional learning, training and consultation in these areas:

• Multi-Year Strategic Planning
• Director of Education Performance Appraisal
• Developing a Code of Conduct for Trustees
• Board Self-Assessment
• Legal Aspects of School Board Governance
• Running Effective School Board Meetings
• School Board Finance
• School Boards and Human Resources
• Conflict Management
• Community Engagement

Contact Us to learn how OESC can support your board.

The collective bargaining framework for the education sector features a two-tier bargaining process (or central and local bargaining as it is often referred to). Participants at the central level include the government and trustees’ associations (CTA/CAE) as co-management partners, negotiating fair and equitable central collective agreements with teacher federations and education worker unions.

The CTA/CAE provides continued leadership, service and support to all member school boards in ongoing labour relations and collective bargaining services. The Provincial Portal is a restricted-access database available to Public, Catholic, and French Language school boards in Ontario providing information on negotiations, as well as a comprehensive searchable database of collective agreements, legal opinions and arbitration decisions. Users also have access to the Grievance Tracking System (GTS) where information related to central grievances province-wide is maintained.

The School Energy Coalition (SEC), established in 2004, is an initiative jointly sponsored by the Council of Directors of Education (CODE), the Council of School Business Officials (COSBO), the Ontario Association of School Business Officials (OASBO) and the four school board/trustee associations, administered by OESC.

The SEC is registered as the official intervenor at the Ontario Energy Board on behalf of all 72 District School Boards in Ontario. The intervention role aims to protect the financial interests of school boards when natural gas and electricity utilities apply for increases in distribution rates for their energy sources. A summary of SEC’s work is published on a quarterly basis in the SEC Status Report which is issued to all school boards.

The bulk of the cost of SEC’s interventions is recovered from utilities under a system of cost reimbursement mandated and supervised by the Ontario Energy Board. The Energy Board allows interveners like SEC to claim reimbursement for participating in the regulatory process, up to certain maximum amounts. Those maximum amounts are established both on an hourly rate basis, and on a per project basis. The reimbursement rates are less than the market rates for the lawyers and consultants contracted by SEC.

Some costs incurred by SEC are not recovered through the regulatory process. Costs such as accounting, office expenses, meeting costs, additional legal and consulting fees, etc. These additional costs are funded through a levy paid by each school board on an annual basis. The total levy requirement to cover these additional costs is allocated based on average daily enrolment.

Additional information regarding hearings, decisions, consultation/policy initiatives and electricity distribution rate applications can be found on the Ontario Energy Board website.

Summary Status Reports