Victoria Wells – Journalist

Sometimes a simple change is the best way to make a difference.

It’s an idea that Angela Kennedy, Ward 11 Catholic school board trustee and chair, takes to heart when resolving issues brought to her by parents and principals. Often, the solution can be as simple as moving a bus stop to the opposite side of the street.

That’s what happened when one woman had trouble walking three first-graders across a busy stretch of Queen Street to catch the bus. After hearing the woman’s dilemma, Kennedy was able to have the stop moved.

“Now she walks out of the house and gets the bus. I had to bring it to board and explain to my trustee colleagues why they needed to move the stop,” Kennedy said. “I like making those kinds of connections for people.”

Connecting with parents to help make their lives easier is just one of the roles Kennedy fills as trustee. In August, Kennedy was appointed chair of the Toronto Catholic District School Board by new ministry supervisor Richard Alway. The appointment has left her spending time researching ways the TCDSB can function better.

For a while, trustees were stripped of the right to participate in their own board. In January, former supervisor Norbert Hartmann refused to appoint a chair after a series of outbursts marred board meetings.

But a lot has changed since January. With Alway at the helm, trustees have been invited to take a more active role in decisions. More importantly, Kennedy said it shows the public that she and her colleagues are capable of being in control.

“Someone needs to be the face of the board,” she said. “A rudderless ship is not going to improve the public confidence and trust.”

Penny Boyce-Chester, co-founder of the Greater Toronto Catholic Parent Network, knew Kennedy first as a parent and then as a trustee. Her daughter went to Notre Dame secondary school in Ward 11, and Boyce-Chester has guardianship over another child at the school. She said Kennedy has a challenge ahead of her as chair.

“This board is dysfunctional,” Boyce-Chester said. “Cooperation would be a difficult thing for anybody to get in uniting them. That’s going to be difficult. But I think she’s going to give it a good try.”

It’s not something Kennedy is shying away from. She says she is hopeful that by working with Alway, the board will continue to move forward.

“He’s optimistic and he’s what I call a choreographer,” Kennedy said. “He’s saying my job is to work with the trustees and to make sure that there is an effective model to make all these changes happen.”

Kennedy first became involved in Catholic education as a parent. She raised seven boys in the school system, taking part in multiple parent-teacher associations and eventually heading up what is now the Ontario Association of Parents in Catholic Education. From there she ran for trustee, all while raising her children, working full time as a nurse and, later, running in two separate federal elections.

Kennedy still works as a nurse at Toronto East General Hospital, where she counsels people with diabetes.

Boyce-Chester worries Kennedy’s devotion to a busy schedule could make decision-making difficult.

“She takes on more than she can chew a lot of the time,” Boyce-Chester said. “Sometimes she might miss part of the discussion and that could cause her decision to be off the mark.”

But Boyce-Chester also called Kennedy a “committed and hard working volunteer” who appreciates what it’s like to be a parent.

“She understands the parent issues,” she said. “As a parent, she would run from hockey to her meetings, and she might have been late, but she was always there.”

A love of keeping busy is something Kennedy said keeps her going.

It’s shown in her home. On this day, Kennedy’s house is still decorated from two separate bridal showers she’s hosted for friends in the past week. Such endeavors, along with board meetings, family commitments and her job as a nurse, leave her little time to relax. Kennedy said she copes with exercise and an organization strategy.

Before going to bed each night, Kennedy makes lists of all the items she needs to accomplish the next day. She said the system works for her, allowing her to keep everything planned in her mind.

That system helped her to work towards becoming chair of the board, a goal she’s had since being elected as a trustee in 2000. Even the spending scandal that hit the board didn’t deter her from wanting the job.

The Ministry of Education took control of the board after an audit posed serious questions about the spending habits of some trustees. Kennedy was not one of them.

She said she was unaware of the extent of misconduct when the scandal broke.

“I knew we had a problem. But, in some ways I wasn’t aware of all the backroom stuff that was happening,” she said. “In some ways it was a surprise.In my view, we were doing the job we were elected to do as trustees.”

Though she said she was disappointed the supervisory team stepped in, Kennedy acknowledges that they made some tough decisions that needed to be made.

“In fact, I think this is going to be better for us in the end,” she said. “We now have some expense policies which are much stricter and have tighter parameters.”

In the meantime, Kennedy said she is looking forward to helping the board get back on track. And, she said that process has already begun.

“The trustees are doing their work. We’re meeting with the supervisor and he’s invited us to be a solid partner to move the board forward,” Kennedy said. “We can do things better. We can learn from the past.”

Originally published in The East Toronto Observer, October 16, 2009