Windsor police clear public gallery at contentious school board meet

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Windsor police were called to the public school board’s head office Tuesday afternoon in an attempt to clear the gallery at a special meeting to determine whether trustee Linda Qin should be disciplined following complaints by some trustees about her behaviour.  

The board called the meeting at the Park Street West building to deal with a consultant’s report addressing four formal complaints from trustees filed last year about various comments made by Qin.  

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The meeting was recessed and eventually abandoned after board chair Gale Hatfield — who had several times warned a vocal gallery of about 50 people who showed up to support Qin — called for the public to leave, but they refused to go.  

About 38 minutes after it started, Hatfield recessed the meeting. All trustees left the room except Qin, who remained in her chair.

When the meeting recessed, trustee Julia Burgess was speaking in support of a motion concluding that Qin had breached the board’s code of conduct in a 15-minute interview she gave to the conservative media organization Rebel News in June, 2023. In the interview, Qin explained her opposition to the board’s policy to allow children to use their preferred pronouns without consulting parents.

“I find that disrespectful to the trustee that was speaking, so now I’m going to ask you all please to leave,” Hatfield said to the gallery. 

The audience replied with a chorus of “no” and remained in place. 

“I have the authority under the Education Act. You’ve been disrespectful. I’m going to recess the meeting for five minutes and I’m asking security to clear the gallery,” she said.  

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As trustees filed out of the room, various audience members called out “shame,” “you’re all bullies,” “you’re all on notice” and “linguistic racism” (alluding to Qin’s tendency to struggle with the English language. She is of Chinese origin).  

At that point, the audience grew increasingly boisterous, though there appeared to be no threats.   

Trustee Ron Le Clair, who filed the original complaint, quotes Qin saying in the interview “there is no reason to lie to hide from their parents,” which drew applause from the gallery and admonishment from Hatfield for the gallery to stop.  

Among his other complaints about the interview, Le Clair said Qin claimed she was being “bullied and is the target of a vendetta,” that she is “silenced when she says something different,” that the board is not listening to parents, and that there had been code of conduct complaints laid against her — which at the time was confidential information. 

A review of the video interview shows she either made comments roughly equivalent to those Le Clair claimed or she agreed with interviewer David Menzies’ comments.  

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When police arrived, officers maintained a laid-back and friendly demeanour while audience members discussed what unfolded at the meeting. 

At one point an officer addressed members of the audience saying “you’ve been asked to leave, so they’re not going to continue the meeting until you guys leave.”  

After a tense back and forth with gallery members, the officer turned away and an audience member called out “see, you walk out, just keep going home and quit your job while you’re at it.”  

“You don’t say things like that,” the officer replied.  

Officers, five in all, gathered in a small group for discussion, then moved outside the room, while audience members chatted among themselves.  

The officer returned about half an hour later to tell gallery members “the meeting is done,” and that trustees were leaving the building.  

This is not the first time the board has halted a meeting due to a boisterous gallery. Last spring, trustees recessed a meeting to restore order due to the gallery’s behaviour. The board ultimately barred the public from attending meetings for three months until increased security measures were put in place.   

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Qin, speaking to the Star after board members left the room, said, “there is something wrong with our education system. We are not uniting together to make education better,” she said. “We are not communicating with each other enough to understand each other and to hear different opinions. 

“We are only allowed one voice, and any different opinions are silenced,” Qin said. “That’s why parents feel frustrated.”  

She said trustees need to understand each other.  

“We can talk with each other and remove the misunderstanding,” she said. “We cannot use this formal complaint process as a weapon to silence other people… who have different opinions.”  

Steven Gifford was in the gallery at the meeting. “I think it’s a board of conformity that’s trying to get a consensus to eliminate the one truthful, factual dissenting voice,” he said.

“She may have a linguistic issue with translation but her facts are on point.”

Pat Copus, who was also in the audience, thinks trustees are not accepting of Qin struggling with the English language. “I think this is a kangaroo court, because (Qin) has nobody defending her,” said Copus. “I believe that it is linguistic racism. She’s difficult to understand … but she’s a very highly educated individual.”

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Also in the audience was Jeremy Palko, whose attempt to speak to the board May 21 was shut down by Hatfield for going off topic. Palko and Salena Hamilton, whose presentation to the board was also cut short the same night for speaking off topic, returned to give full presentations to the board June 18.  

“I think this is an absolute farce, debacle. It’s a waste of taxpayer time and money to attack the one trustee … who actually supports parents and kids,” said Palko, who is a member of Action4Canada, a group that opposes the presence of what it says are sexually explicit books in some school libraries, as well as allowing children to choose their gender pronoun without informing parents.  

“When they go after her, it’s because she doesn’t support the political agenda,” Palko said. “They have politicized this school board and our education system.”  

Regarding a complaint by Le Clair that Qin spoke to the media without permission of the board chair, Palko referenced an impassioned address to the media by trustee Cathy Cooke in the hallway outside the board chamber April 2 following the decision to name the new Kingsville high school Erie Migration District School.  

Cooke called the meeting an “absolute disgrace,” saying she was “disgusted at what just happened.”  

There is no evidence of any complaints or discipline over her comments.  

bamacleod@postmedia.com  

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