Lindsay Davidson

Sep 25, 2014

Trustee

Lindsay Davidson – shaking up the Limestone Board

Lindsay Davidson is a busy mid-career surgeon, educator, and parent, not exactly the sort of person who would normally jump into the race for school board trustee, a job that carries a large time commitment.

Davidson become involved in school board politics when she became a community representative to the central Kingston Program and Accommodation Review Committee (PARC), a controversial process that has ended up in court, and has turned her into an oppositional figure in relation to the board.

She is blunt in her assessment of the board: “I think we have a board that is convinced that bigger is better when it comes to schools ... I think that the senior staff at the board are quite complacent and have a rigid vision... Trustees have a responsibility to ask hard questions and get answers,” she said.

Her son is a grade 12 student at Kingston Collegiate, a school that is now slated for closure. Even though her family's full time residence is in rural Kingston, on Unity Road in Glenburnie, she said that she did not see herself running in Countryside ward in Kingston, which is represented by long-time trustee Elaine Crawford, because it includes urban East Kingston, and her connections are stronger in South Frontenac, as her family has property on Desert Lake.

She said that South Frontenac is also under threat by the tendency of the board, admittedly under pressure from the province, to close smaller community schools and open larger regional ones.

“Ernestown High School could be closed. It is something that is being considered and it would affect South Frontenac because 1/3 of the Ernestown students would be redirected to Sydenham High School, which is already a 1,000 student high school. I also think that Storrington and Perth Road public schools could be in the board's sights in the future,” she said.

Lindsay Davidson is also critical of the current trustee for South Frontenac, Suzanne Ruttan.

“It is not sufficient to for a trustee to just help parents navigate the system for their children, a trustee has to ask some questions,” she said, “and having a trustee who is in the education system and married to a school principal is not enough. I come from the outside the system. I am familiar with large institutions and large systems, and I don’t like the way this one operates. It needs someone to challenge it on behalf of residents, not someone who will just defend it.”