Miss-educated Director of Education: 'Colour blind' equality doesn’t lead to calling the police on a 4-year-old student

Apr 06, 2022

Yes, the headline is correct, last November the police were called to deal with a 4-year-old black kindergarten student, after teachers claimed 'they were behaving violently'. This week, the Catholic School Board met to discuss the findings and recommendations from a Ministry of Education Report on the incident. (Read the story here).

The statement made by the Director of Education for the local Catholic District School Board, suggested that because staff take a ‘colour blind’ approach, it lead teachers to calling the police on a 4-year-old black student. I had to re-read the Education Director's statement a few times (thinking I had missed something… but I didn't). Her statement simply showed her lack of education. Adultification Bias and Systemic Racism lead to that behaviour! Also her reference and usage of 'colour blind and equal', indicates that she, and likely none of her colleagues, have held themselves accountable for receiving educating on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. How can a Director of Education not do their homework? This is also a demonstration of what performative leadership looks like; claiming that you understand the importance and have the knowledge of the criminalization of black children yet haven't taken any action to address the internal issues (instead treating the incident as a one-time occurence), nor take any accountability for what transpired.

My other concern is that the Catholic School system is already under intense scrutiny, due to the disastrous and horrific treatment of Indigenous students and their families at Residential Schools across Canada. Just last week, the Pope finally gave an apology for these atrocities and yet this local Catholic board is led by a Director who stated that they would ‘disagree with some of the characterizations in the report’ provided to them. How is this leader going to “fix” what they won’t see nor understand?

Leaders are expected to do their due diligence, model acceptable behaviours and be knowledgeable in their areas of expertise but in this case, this Education Director is obviously lacking education (based on her statements and lack of understanding of the seriousness of the incident that transpired).

This leader needs a serious BrandRewind^TM, beginning with education on Implicit Bias and Microaggressions. She also needs to ensure that her leadership team, colleagues and teachers receive the same training asap, particularly regarding Adultification Bias and the serious long-term impacts it has on the Black and Indigenous communities. Then she can begin to move onto the recommendations, policy reviews and the huge amount of work that her board needs to be accountable for to ensure this incident, and others like it, never happen in their school district.

Zoe Mitchell is the founder of Sharp Processes, a leadership consultancy focused on improving employee engagement using Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Psychological Safety and Process Improvement with her 20 years of corporate senior leadership positions. She is also the author of Inclusive Leadership Now (also available on Amazon).