These aren’t my marks! Guidance Counsellor changes marks on student’s report card

BY PAUL JUNOR

It is unfortunate that it had to take social media to draw attention to the plight of Medina Jones in early October.

She was a student at Oakville Trafalgar High School, a school in the Halton District School Board (HDSB) in which her predicted grades on her university application were deliberately lowered by her guidance counsellor. Her marks were subsequently increased as reported by the Wednesday, October 28th, issue of the Toronto Star.

The response from social media, and the launch of a third-party investigation by the HDSB has brought attention to the issue of systemic racism at the school.

Medina’s frustration with the administrators at her school led her to posting on Instagram the struggles that she faced. As a result of this, there had been more than 16,000 views, likes and comments as former and current students expressed their views. Many spoke of personal racist experiences.

Medina explained, “When I saw the outpouring of responses, then I realized, this kind of thing is really resonating with a lot of people. There is a pattern with what this guidance counsellor has done.” She believes that this is simply not due to lack of awareness on the part of the guidance counsellor, but is a systemic issue. She states, “This wasn’t done out of ignorance. This process has been successfully done for students who are white. The people who are being impacted by this guidance department aren’t every student; it’s disproportionately black, Indigenous and students of colour.”

Rowda Mohamud, Medina’s mother, communicated with the principal and contacted the board’s principal of equity and inclusive education. She states, “It was completely arbitrary. She didn’t even tell us what she did to change the marks. I want to understand what these people actually did to generate the first set of grades and the second set of grades. I want to see what process they followed or didn’t follow. I am not happy that this simply got changed.”

The investigation by the HDSB is a positive move, as it signals that the board is serious and is willing to get to the heart of the matter. An email to Mohamud states, “There will be an investigation into the issues you, Medina and others have raised around the systemic racism and in particular anti-black racism at Oakville Trafalgar, and especially in the Guidance department.”

The Toronto Star reported that HDSB’s spokesperson, Marnie Denton reported that a staff member of the school has been placed on administrative leave, but did not reveal who it was. A survey was sent out by Tina Salmini (Superintendent of Education), which received 34 responses even though there are about 1,200 students in the school. It was only accessible for one week.

According to Denton, the survey was meant to, “Gather reports of potential discriminatory experiences by students and parents, to ensure the integrity of the data collection process so that the board’s response could be based on the highest quality data possible.” Denton reported that, “Students identified several areas of concern regarding student-student and student-staff interaction around the following topics: age, race, ethnicity, citizenship, gender identities/ gender expression, sexual orientation, religion/ creed/ spiritual affiliation.”

Mohamud is critical of the survey and believes that it was poorly conducted and it was too short a time period to get more feedback from the school community.

Denton told the Toronto Star that, “The responses collected will be used to inform decision-making at the school and if needed at the Board level. We will use the information collected to identify course of action to support and sustain an inclusive, equitable and discrimination-free learning environment here at Oakville Trafalgar High School.”

Medina, who has been impacted personally, is still sceptical. She notes, “We still don’t have answers. The whole issue with the marks, even with changing of the mark’s, they didn’t follow a process.”