Glen’s story, as told to Natalya Anderson, Communications Director , OFIS

Introduction to the early years

The Ontario Association of Alternative and Independent Schools was created back in the early ‘70s. That was basically a lot of independent schools in Ontario that were trying to rectify any injustice and unfairness dealt them, and to protect parental choice in education through protecting the right of independent schools to exist. It was a diverse association in those days too. There were mass gatherings, there was lobbying at Queen's Park, and lots of activity like that going on in the hope of influencing constructive change.

At the time there was research and study being done in terms of what other provinces were doing for independent schools, and, looking at those examples to see if we could somehow manage to move the Ontario government in a supportive direction. It was inspirational to be together in a large group like that, but they were their own worst enemies in so many ways. Everybody was concerned about how it might affect them, if, in fact, they got funding. Would the government put constraints on us, and to what degree, in order to permit or allow funding? Some didn’t want funding at all, but just wanted to be recognized as a legitimate part of the educational mix in Ontario.

I became passionate about being part of this kind of association because I'm a product of an independent school. I went to Rockway Mennonite Collegiate in Kitchener in my high school years, and what it gave me was something very, very special. It was personal and personable, it helped me shape my life-long values in important ways. And, you know, I could see that it had struggles too as a school, there were ways in which it could do better, and that could make its existence easier. And so it was certainly on my mind once I graduated, in terms of the welfare of that institution. Later on in the early ‘70s, I was invited on the board at Rockway, and at the same time this organization that would become OFIS was just beginning. And larger meetings were happening around this emphasis of getting legitimately recognized, the right to exist, and some kind of fairness and funding. I was attending those meetings on behalf of the Rockway board. In the late ‘70s, I became the Development Director of Rockway Mennonite Collegiate. That gave opportunity for me to get more even more engaged in what was going on in this advocacy quest.

To take it back a notch, in my younger years, my family boarded students that came to Rockway from Toronto. It was interesting to have them living in our home bringing what they were experiencing at the school to our conversations at home. It became part of our family life. When I was of the age where I could attend Rockway, I didn’t want to go anywhere else because of hearing that conversation. I happily worked all summer to earn part of the tuition so I could go. Besides having a strong academic and arts program with dedicated teachers plus extra curriculars, we had a lot of diversity in the school including different faith backgrounds. I am Mennonite, but we had Catholic, Anglican, and others with less closely held religious affiliations. We were encouraged as students to discuss what that meant to us. We compared our different religious or non-religious teachings, and we realized that really they were many of the same values; they just took different shapes and forms. But behind that was the same intention. As friends, we would get together once a month all year round, camp out in the woods and just have constructive formative guy talk. We're still friends, and it's been 60 years or more. Those values are still there. I brought that and still bring that sense of friendship and community to my involvement with what is now OFIS.

In the beginning

So, yes, OFIS began in the early 1970s as OAAIS, the Ontario Association of Alternative and Independent Schools. Securing the right to exist was its foundational purpose. Of course, funding was also a common concern, along with fairness, and equity. The association was broad, including overall Christian, the specific denomination of Catholic (seeking full funding), Jewish, and included different educational philosophies operating independently from the public system. We saw in the early years at OAAIS that we could support our schools better if the government even understood or acknowledged that we existed, and if we had money. We could see that it was also important for the organization to help independent schools in their day-to-day existence. Members paid dues to OAAIS to hire an executive director and a representative to lobby Queens Park. There were large gatherings and demonstrations, including many personal visits to MPPs at Queens Park.

OAAIS was from the beginning structured as a charitable organization allowing individual membership contributions and donations to be tax deductible. The goal was to get funding, fairness and equity from the Ontario government in some form similar to what many other provinces in Canada were already doing. In a couple of decades, the CRA took exception to the level of lobbying, and the charitable status was challenged, then removed. Lyle McBurney was the executive director in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, for more than a decade, and spent much of his time as the OAAIS lobbyist at Queens Park. The late Elaine Hopkins followed him as executive director.

In the early days, the biggest difficulty was presenting a unified front to the government, since there were differing opinions within the association about how much funding could and should be granted, and there was fear surrounding how much control the government would want in exchange for funding. There were also differences of opinion on how to approach government, and often the feeling was that a specific group or association might get better results and sooner by representing themselves, apart from the others. This fragmented the effort and it became easier for the government to take the ‘divide and conquer’ route in addressing our requests. The large Catholic system stopped involvement in OAAIS after our combined effort helped them successfully complete their funding for all high school grades in the ‘80s, thereby creating further fragmentation among us, and less strength in numbers. In 1991, OAAIS changed its name and became known as the Ontario Federation of Independent Schools (OFIS).

OAAIS becomes OFIS, leading to new beginnings

Independent schools have always been a hot potato politically and you may remember that John Tory lost his bid for premiership in 2007. Tory was literally taking a public stand in favor of independent schools and recognizing/acknowledging the importance of them. He paid the price and he lost the election, largely because everyone was judging all independent schools as “private” which they saw as “elite” schools. This was and is a damaging misconception. As today, there was a lot of mudslinging at that time, laying blame and disseminating much misinformation and disinformation. The media played with it, repeating, for the most part, inaccurate information. Tory was leaning toward helping independent schools find a more just position in Ontario, but the result was the spreading of more inaccuracy about independent schools, including that they were elitest and all being for the wealthy. This is an ongoing battle when the government and many in opposition continually refer to the entire independent school sector as ‘private’.

Throughout this period, executive director Elaine Hopkins was passionate about the well-being of the OFIS member schools and recruiting new schools. She tried to visit all of them even though she lived in Ottawa. She seemed to have boundless energy and enthusiasm for the work until she retired from the OFIS position in 2008. Now the board faced some challenges. OFIS and the board was seeking a new executive director. It was also reeling from the abuse of the provincial election denigrating private and independent schools. Sadly, Elaine passed in 2014 from cancer at the age of 74.

The desire to move our schools from good to great

An in-depth review and strategic plan was undertaken by the board. The result led to a determination to help the independent schools in Ontario be all that they can be, to meet and exceed standards of the public system, to be defensible to the government and in the public eye. The OFIS board newly developed their VISION, MISSION and VALUES, promoting STANDARD SETTING LEADERSHIP for our member schools. This was launched with the intent of moving our member schools from GOOD to GREAT and to elevate or lift the quality and importance of independent schools, for their own benefit, but equally important, in the public eye.

Barbara Bierman was hired as the new executive director in 2009. During her time and under her leadership the board established OFIS school membership categories of Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum, depending on their level of compliance with the requirements of each category that was set out by OFIS for the member schools. School reviews were an important part of this strong effort to move schools from one level to the next, the logo of each level could be proudly presented on school promotional materials, revealing their effort and demonstrating their journey to greatness. Lower per student member cost was applied progressively for each of the higher categories expecting the experience of the more mature and elevated member schools to be shared openly and supportively with the categories with less experience and more needs below them.

The OFIS Charitable Trust is initiated

In 2012, the important establishment of the OFIS Charitable Trust came to be as a tool in the moving of our schools from GOOD to GREAT. When the CRA decided that OFIS could no longer be a registered charity because of what they deemed to be too strong a lobby trying to influence government, OFIS had lost the privilege to offer tax receipts to our supporters.

When faced with losing the OFIS charitable status, I worked with the late Ron Knechtel, a special friend and colleague who sadly passed away in January 2014 at the age of 85. Ron was a strong believer in independent schools. He had extensive and helpful experience, having spent much of his career working for the government in the CRA charity division. We volunteered our time, working together to structure and register the OFIS Charitable Trust. Through the trust, individual donors could, albeit indirectly, support the work of OFIS and again obtain tax receipts. Donations encourage aspiring educators and administrators called to work in the independent school sector to access training opportunities provided by OFIS, all purposefully prepared to improve their skill sets. These funds provide bursaries and encouragement to individuals based on aspirations and need. The bursary they receive helps them pay the course fees to OFIS. Bottom line, donors are providing a wonderful gift to beneficiaries: teachers, administrators, who in turn enrich our schools and, ultimately, the lives of their students.

Shifting emphasis as the decades progress

Going back to our board of directors and its evolution, Barbara gave OFIS an amazing 10 years of service until health concerns forced her to resign in 2019. During this time the primary emphasis was strengthening the existence of our member schools and less advocating for the funding concern of the past. The funding issue did not disappear, but the priority was to bring our schools to a level of respect undeniable to the government and the general public. There had long been a lack of publicly viewed and understood, fair and accurate information regarding the valuable presence of independent schools – which allow for a choice in education – and regarding the important diverse educational mix we have in Ontario. Undeniably, many published studies and reports already attest to this, but the positive and supportive findings fall on deaf ears or are drowned out by those in opposition.

The board was again faced with finding a new executive director. Upon Barbara Bierman’s leaving, Amanda Dervaitis, an existing OFIS board member, quickly jumped in and began picking up the slack. She had a passion for the work OFIS was doing. She already knew the value and place of OFIS and what it meant to her, having her own OFIS member school. Amanda was encouraged to apply for the executive director position. She was the strongest candidate among many good applicants and was hired. Amanda officially began her role in late 2019, immersing herself in everything with seemingly boundless energy and enthusiasm.

Just as OFIS was off and running again, the global COVID 19 pandemic in early 2020 changed everything. And yet, OFIS rose to the occasion and assisted our member schools throughout the ordeal. A godsend was an old friend of independent schools, now retired from ministry inspection and supervision of independent schools, Tony Dilena. Tony was often a speaker at the OFIS annual general meetings, inspiring us in regard to the important work OFIS and member schools were doing, and helping us navigate the convoluted education system. Tony willingly and happily jumped in and with Amanda helped out with regular online structure and guidance for our schools, providing an inside track to government amidst the many and quickly changing, frustrating COVID mandates. Tony noted recently that our independent schools came through COVID with flying colours in contrast to the public schools. It is important to note that independent studies now made public, report on and underscore this as fact.

Advocacy becomes increasingly important

We believe that the public is starting to take note of these important triumphs. New independent schools are starting up and parents are looking for more personalized education options for their children. As an association, OFIS can help new schools prepare to launch, as well as guide our more experienced members in fine tuning their potential. We also have, and this is important, a new vigor for advocacy. A number of battles were fought with government during COVID to secure inclusion, fairness and equity. Many arguments were presented as to why this should be and some traction has been achieved. We also see a new willingness in independent schools and their associations (where they exist) to work together, more united, and harmonious!

A strong direction together as one

Coming back to the different levels of membership we have for emerging schools up to established schools, our future agenda is that we’re expecting something from each level, we're expecting that we see the association and member schools as a body, one body, and that we can all help one another improve. We’re here to show the pride it takes to go through the rigors of application. We want the schools to respect themselves and be proud of themselves. That’s what this rigorous application process is evolving for and into. In our wisdom, and our experience, as we grow together, we need to have that sense of responsibility. We're not just here for ourselves. We have an obligation to our schools, our teachers, our students, and to strengthening the community, and as a whole, the independent school sector in Ontario.

Still moving proudly from good to great

We are revitalizing our OFIS mandate to move our member schools and the entire independent school sector to another new level of excellence. A key part of this is refreshing the OFIS School Review process. This is an opportunity for our schools to show and reflect standard setting leadership. Let’s be strong together, as we look toward the next 50 years!