A Toronto District School Board trustee is being accused of bullying fellow staff members during a board meeting this past week.
Several witnesses allege that school trustee Howard Goodman badgered TDSB Education Director Donna Quan during a planning meeting on Wednesday.
Fellow trustee Sam Sotiropoulos sent a letter of complaint to TDSB board chair Chris Bolton immediately after the incident.
Sotiropoulos claims Goodman intimidated Quan over the non-payment of board membership fees.
“Trustee Goodman's tone and manner were threatening and unprofessional, unbefitting of an elected official vis a vis an employee of the TDSB,” Sotiropoulos wrote.
“I, myself, felt uncomfortable and was frightened by his astonishing and disturbing display of anger.”
Meanwhile, Quan and several other board members sent their own letter of complaint to Bolton on Wednesday, stating that TDSB staff members were subjected to abusive comments by Goodman.
“This is not acceptable under any circumstances,” Quan wrote.
Goodman told CTV News he was simply having a passionate discussion at the meeting.
“If Sam thought that there was a problem between Donna and me, that’s not for him to judge,” he said.
Goodman, a father of two, was elected trustee in the Eglinton-Lawrence area in 2003 after succeeding Kathleen Wynne.
On his website, Goodman states that one of his core areas of focus as trustee is to establish a “culture of kindness” in every TDSB school.
He has served on several education-related boards including including the Executive Committee of the Ontario Public School Boards Association and the Toronto Foundation for Student Success.
In an email to CTV Toronto, TDSB Chair Chris Bolton said he would bring an off-duty officer to the board meeting on Wednesday “as some board members and staff do not feel safe.”
“It is important that all trustees feel safe and this is not the case right now,” he wrote.
With a report by CTV Toronto’s Calvin To
