The New Chair of the Bluewater public school board says if there is a problem in the system — she will be the first to admit it.
Jennifer Yenssen tells Bayshore Broadcasting News she will do her best to seek the truth as the board has been levelled with several complaints from parents.
Bluewater Trustees will begin to review those complaints next Tuesday.
Yenssen says they will go back several years to see how the complaints were handled and they will try to find any trends.
Yenssen says her conversation with Education Minister Kathleen Wynne went very well.
Ministry staff will have their first conversation with Yenssen and Bluewater board officials Thursday.
She says the Minister was very supportive and offered whatever resources necessary for the board to complete its review of the complaints.
Yenssen figures the Ministry staff will be able to help them pour over the reports and develop an action and communication plan.
She expects it will take most of the month to complete the review.
Yenssen says they don’t want to take this lightly and they want to take their time to make a good decision and find out if there is indeed a problem.
A number of teachers have also logged complaints with the Bluewater public school board — and Yenssen feels most of them have to do with workload.
Yenssen believes teachers today are working harder than ever.
Yenssen also feels part of the problem may be that some parents are not aware of the communication guidelines.
But Yenssen says they can never “over communicate” and she believes many of the issues can be solved with how they communicate and how often.
Yenssen has been a trustee with the Bluewater Board of Education since 1991.
Yenssen served as Chair for five years — but tells Bayshore Broadcasting News she tried to slowly phase herself out.
But a number of trustees asked Yenssen to return to oversee this crisis and Yenssen says she “felt compelled” to do the job.