WRDSB trustee won’t be removed from school resource officer committee

The Black Brilliance Advisory Committee (BBAC) said Waterloo Region District School Board trustee Mike Ramsay cannot be allowed to sit on the school resource officer review committee, citing his previous history with law enforcement as a conflict of interest. 

In a letter addressed to trustees, it calls on the board to remove Ramsay from the committee, calling his presence at the table an act of institution-sanctioned harm against Black, Indigenous, and racialized students. The letter was sent on Monday. 

Ramsay was a former Waterloo Regional Police officer for 11 years, now turned trustee for over 20 years.

He tells the Mike Farwell Show on 570 NEWS, he feels resource officers play a positive role in schools. 

“The goals of the program are really to develop a positive relationship between youth and police,” said Ramsay, “it's to reduce youth victimization and to partner with school staff to proactively address student, family, and school issues.”

Some activists said the program, which places ten officers inside elementary and high schools, is a way for police to surveil students and place them in what has been called a school-to-prison pipeline. 

Outlining some of the key concerns of the BBAC on Twitter, committee member Teneile Warren wrote that Trustee Ramsay clearly stated his bias toward the School Resource Officer review on October 19th, as he reportedly declared that he did not agree with the community's perspective on the program. Warren said this perspective is “not indicative of entering the review process open to hearing voices of the community.”

“One purpose of the review is to determine [if the program] should it be removed,” wrote Warren. “By declaring before the process has begun that he doesn't agree with the removal, [Trustee Ramsay] has declared his bias.”

Warren also further questioned Ramsay's ability to be impartial on this decision in referencing allegations made by the trustee and Trustee Kathi Smith in that same meeting that members of the BIPOC community were being “harassed by BLM.”

“Ironically, @Trustee_Ramsay said he was protecting these individuals right to privacy by not sharing their names w/out permission, yet the trustee did not offer me and the members of the BBAC this same courtesy.”

Warren said Ramsay had shared an email sent to the board by the BBAC with a local media columnist, as Warren argues the trustee later admitted to doing so in his interview on the Mike Farwell Show. She wrote that Ramsay's comments in the interview “insinuated that this is a natural outcome of emailing our trustees to advocate for the community.”

Ramsay later refuted on social media that he took any responsibility for how local media received the information.

Ramsay went on to say that the BBAC will have its voices heard, suggesting that the goal of the discussion is to have the best interest of students put forward. 

“We've had many opportunities to get their viewpoints across and a lot of it involves bullying,” said Ramsay, “I've certainly had enough of that.”

Ramsay adds that the BBAC is just one of many groups that advise the board for this review. 

“That's just one or two perspectives, and there are other perspectives out there. I've been hearing from them since this letter has been discussed publicly.” 

Ramsay doesn't agree that his past experience as a police officer in Waterloo Region is a conflict of interest and said that he feels like he's been part of the solution. 

“We now have an entire team at the WRDSB working on issues related to race and Indigenous students or students who are part of the LGBTQ community.”

Upon receiving that letter, trustees have decided to keep Ramsay on the committee. 

A decision is expected from the committee by the end of next year.