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Governing Ourselves informs members of legal and regulatory matters affecting the profession. This section provides updates on licensing and qualification requirements, notification of Council resolutions and reports from various Council committees, including reports on accreditation and discipline matters.
The College Council welcomes new elected Council member Brigitte (Bidal) Piquette, who fills the Northeast Region Full-Time position. Piquette teaches online courses for the Consortium d’apprentissage virtuel de langue française de l’Ontario, which serves Ontario’s French-language school boards’ e-Learning program.
Piquette started her career teaching a summer course in typing and word processing in 1995. From 1996 to 1997, she taught management, marketing, accounting, and public relations at Collège Boréal in Sudbury and Sturgeon Falls. Since then, Piquette has gone on to teach secondary school English, nutrition and health and co-operative education with the Conseil scolaire catholique Franco-Nord, as well as business and commerce, social sciences and accounting in schools in North Bay and Sturgeon Falls. From 2005 to 2006, she was with her board’s Program and Pedagogical Services, facilitating the Ministry’s Student Success program initiatives. Between 2008 and 2010, she worked at the Alternative Education Centre at École secondaire catholique Franco-Cité, where she was responsible for helping adults obtain their high school diplomas and assisting high school students who faced challenges in regular classroom settings.
Piquette worked as an international teacher in Dubai and Cyprus from 2010 to 2012, taught online courses through the French-Language Virtual Learning Consortium of Ontario, and wrote online courses for the Franco-Ontarian pedagogical resources centre. Prior to teaching, she served as a special events co-ordinator for the West Nipissing Economic Development Corporation, co-ordinated a promotional tour for French-language radio and television programming for West Nipissing for the CBC-SRC, and was a professional model.
Piquette has a bachelor of business management from Ryerson University, a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner Diploma from the Quebec College of Alternative Medicine, and a B.Ed. from Laurentian University.
The College Council welcomes new Council member Jane Ishibashi, who was appointed in August 2015 for a three-year term. Ishibashi is an associate with Oakville Psychologists, providing psychological assessments for children and adolescents. She began her career working in psychological assessment and program development for the Richelieu Valley Board of Education in McMasterville, Que., from 1973 until 1980.
Ishibashi was seconded by the Ministry of Education from 1990 to 1992 to the Robarts School in London as a learning disabilities consultant for Northwestern Ontario. She has also worked with young offenders at Oakville’s Syl Apps School and with exceptional children at the Halton Board of Education’s General Brock High School IEP Centre.
From 1997 to 2013, Ishibashi conducted psychological assessments of kindergarten to Grade 12 students with the Halton Catholic District School Board. Prior to that, she provided similar services for 10 years with the Haldimand Board of Education (now Grand Erie District School Board).
Ishibashi has a BA from McGill University.
The College Council welcomes new Council member Marie-Thérèse Hokayem, who was appointed in September 2015 for a three-year term. Hokayem is a retired evaluation manager who worked in the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) from 2003 to 2014. As a team leader in complex evaluation projects, Hokayem assessed the relevance, cost effectiveness and results of DFATD program transfer of payments and partnership arrangements with other international governments and organizations.
Between 1998 and 2003, Hokayem served as a review/evaluation manager with Correctional Service Canada (CSC), where she measured the impact and effectiveness of policies, programs and initiatives. She also served CSC as an operational planning analyst, project officer and auditor.
Hokayem has a master’s degree in criminology and a baccalaureate in sociology from the University of Ottawa. She is also fluent in French and Arabic.
The College Council welcomes new elected Council member Ravi Vethamany, who fills the Northeast Region Part-Time/Full-Time position. Vethamany teaches at the secondary level with the Rainbow District School Board. Since joining the profession in 1998, he has also taught elementary and secondary school students at boards in Toronto, Ottawa and York Region.
Vethamany has been a program leader, professional development leader and curriculum writer, an Ontario Teacher Testing Program administrator, and a researcher with Queen’s University. He is also a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and served as a legal aid lawyer between 1990 and 1996. He worked as a teacher assistant for the University of Ottawa Faculty of Education from 2003 to 2004, and was a member of the Ontario Health Professions Appeal and Review Board from 2008 to 2010. Vethamany was awarded the 2015 CIVIX Student Vote award for enabling young Canadians to experience the voting process first-hand and practise the habits of informed and engaged citizenship.
Vethamany is a cognitive coach, Tribes trainer, True Colors trainer, licensed soccer coach and a fitness instructor. He holds a B.Sc., Honours, and an LLB from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, a B.Ed. from the University of Toronto, and a M.Ed. from the University of Ottawa.