Principal Susan Reed should be accountable to Parents

Principal Susan Reed should be accountable to Parents

We are parents, students and staff of Brooklin Village P.S. who have lost confidence in Susan Reed to act in the best interests of students.
She has demonstrated an ongoing attitude of stubborness and disregard for fair and reasonable input.
- She ignored our acting SCC to unilaterally choose the bulldog as our mascot.
- She unilaterally chose not to have a female athlete of the year award.
- She ignored conflict of interest complaints from parents who asked her to withdraw a "beer basket" prize from our Valentines fundraiser of 2006. The basket was compiled by Mrs. Latimers grade 7 class, wherein students were asked to bring $5 each for the purchase of beer and other items related to beer.
- She ignored three busloads of children who would wait every morning (all year) inside their bus for 15-20 min. before being allowed to disembark at 8:45am. We appreciate the tax money and emmissions these kids have saved us by sharing a bus with the students of St. Bridget Carholic School insomuch as catching the bus extra early in order to accomodate St. Bridget's earlier start time. For these kids to then watch their principal through the window in her temperature controlled office as they await permission to disembark is disrespectful and potentially harmful - particularly on colder mornings when the buses remain idling. It is the testimony of Mr. MacGregor that as he offered to raise awareness of this issue through flyers addressed to parents on each bus, Mrs. Reid threatened him with a trespass notice. Mr. MacGregor then proceeded to board each bus to verbally encourage students to inform their parents of the problem. We do not know if Mrs. Reed has any plan to resolve this issue for next year.
- She denied Renee and Julie Hunter entry to the building when they arrived with other parents to "clap out" their kids on the last day of their elementary journey.
- She ignored the entire gr.8 grad class who simply wanted to bid their younger peers a fond farewell in a "clapout" in the same tradition in which they had bid farewell to their mentors along the way. Paul and Michele MacGregor and Gerry Kolten acted within their rights to attend the school office on behalf of all grads (who made covert phone calls to many parents for help) to ask for an explanation from Mrs. Reed. It is the testimony of Mr. and Mrs. MacGregor that when Mr.Kolten asked for a legitimate reason to deny the grad class a clap out, Mrs. Reed abruptly asked all three to leave the premises. When they refused, Mrs. Reed ordered the secretary to phone police. All three were signed in and were wearing visitor passes.
Fortunately the police deemed the call as a low priority and used good judgement to arrive well after students and parents had cleared.
Mr. MacGregor and Mr Kolten were subsequently visited the following day at their respective homes by police in marked cruisers, who served trespass notices prohibiting their free access to school premises through June 30 2008. The issuing officer (PC Chapman 905 - 579-1520 x1836) reports that no threats or foul language were uttered by the men and that Mrs. Reed simply wanted the men off the premises.
Susan Reed and V.P. Brian Bradley argued that Principals are not accountable to parents. We believe that Principals are in fact accountable to parents.
Regrettably, any confidence we had in Mrs. Reed's abilitities to act in the best interests of students has been significantly eroded.
We must ask that these trespass notices be rescinded and that disciplinary action be taken.
(additional verification for these incidents is available upon request from the author)