CATHOLIC SCHOOL BOARD: Fixing what's broken

Robert Ruggieri’s oldest child is deciding whether to attend Blessed Trinity Secondary School or the new “mega school” in Beamsville. The fact that his family is deciding, and not automatically enrolling in the Catholic school, is why Ruggieri decided to run for trustee for the Niagara Catholic District School Board (NCDSB).

“I fully believe in Catholic education but I’m disheartened with the current program,” says Ruggieri, explaining the new school being built in Beasmville has all the bells and whistles from a technology and resources basis while Catholic schools seem to be lacking resources.

From the perspective of his kids, as well as from teachers he has spoken with, the lack of resources at Catholic schools means students are choosing to attend schools in the public system instead of staying in the Catholic board.

“I talk to parents on the soccer field, I’m hearing that they are choosing to move their kids because of resources,” says the father of two children, adding a friend recently told him they are moving to the public system because of the athletics resources and programs that will benefit his athletically talented son.

Ruggieri says there is nothing to draw students to the Catholic board. The current generation of students, he adds, is hearing about residential schools, abuse by the church and priests, and they are not liking Catholicism.

“My son is asking those questions. He hasn’t seen the good in the catholic system.”

Catholicism, he says, is getting a bad rap and he feels that this, combined with the lack of resources at schools, is driving students away from a faith-based education system.

“There is nothing attracting them to the Catholic board.”

A product of the Catholic education system himself, Ruggieri says his teachers were priests and nuns, so that even when discussing math or Shakespeare, there was an undercurrent of faith in the classroom and the relationship students developed with their teachers allowed for all conversations to be an opportunity to talk about faith. Now, he says, the only time faith is part of education is in religion class and students are no longer exposed to the undercurrent of faith in all of their classes.

A professor at George Brown College and coordinator for the operations and supply chain program, Ruggieri says his job is to look for problems and find solutions and to look for better ways of doing things. That’s something he feels is needed at the NCDSB. “The lockout a few years ago put everything at a standstill,” says Ruggieri, noting he doesn’t take sides between teachers and administration but teachers are professionals, they want to be in the classroom, they’re good people, so is most likely a management problem that caused the work action.

“I think the system is broken. How do we fix it?”

Looking over the board’s current budget, Ruggieri points out where special education development allocations are a fraction of what has been allocated for the board administration, saying “far too much” of the budget goes to the board offices.

“The first thing I look at is hard costs,” he says. “Where is the money being allocated?”

The big issue facing all schools in Ontario this election is the provincial government’s change to sex-ed curriculum, repealing new material introduced by the Wynne government in 2015 to go back to material that is 20 years old.

“Reopening the sex-ed curriculum is a backward step for the community and for society in general,” says Ruggieri, noting he sees the oppression many in the LGBTQ community have experienced, and still experience today.

“Students need to be educated in gender identity, sexual orientation, same-sex marriage and other modern issues. Aside from this being a violation of human rights, it also conflicts with the Catholic Belief of Equal Dignity,” he adds.

While his background in commerce means Ruggieri looks at the board through an operations lens—looking for ways to fix and improve the system—he says he sees value in a Catholic education and he wants to see it strengthened. Asserting that he is transparent, honest and straightforward, Ruggieri says as trustee he would work to ensure the community is always informed.

Ruggieri is one of four candidates running for the trustee position for the Catholic school board, including Leanne Prince of Grimsby, Peter Dief of Fonthill, and Lawrence Alexander of Grimsby.