Rainbow District School Board mourns loss of long-time trustee Ernie Checkeris

Rainbow District School Board is mourning the loss of long-time trustee Ernie Checkeris. Ernie Checkeris, who passed away on October 6, 2014, was a trustee with Rainbow District School Board, the former Sudbury Board of Education and its predecessor boards for 55 years. He has the distinction of being one of the longest-serving trustees in Ontario.

“Ernie Checkeris was a pillar in the educational community, not only locally and provincially, but across Canada,” said Rainbow District School Board Chair Doreen Dewar. On behalf of the Board, Chair Dewar extends her deepest sympathy to wife Muiriel MacLeod, also a long-time trustee, and the entire Checkeris family.

Ernie Checkeris became a trustee in 1945 in the days of one-room schoolhouses. He was a member of the Public School Section of the Unorganized Township of Dryden, in the Village of Wahnapitae. He was elected to the Sudbury Board of Education when it was formed in 1969 through the amalgamation of 36 smaller school boards from across the region.

When the Espanola, Manitoulin Island and Sudbury Boards combined to become Rainbow District School Board in 1998, Ernie Checkeris was the first Chair of the new Board. He held the position of Chair many times throughout his tenure as a trustee.

He served on the Hall-Dennis Commission that created the document “Living and Learning” which called for broad educational reforms. In recognition of his outstanding contribution as a trustee, the Sudbury Board of Education renamed a school in his honour in 1989. Ernie Checkeris Public School is located in New Sudbury.

Over the years, Ernie Checkeris was an important part of the evolution of education from the advent of computers and co-operative education, to the introduction of French Immersion and School Councils. He retired as a trustee in 2000. After his retirement, he served as a member of the School Council at Sudbury Secondary School for many years.

Ernie Checkeris believed that the public school system, with its principle that every individual be provided with equal access to educational opportunities, regardless of gender, race, religion, ethnic origin, disability and place of residence in Ontario, was the key to teaching understanding of one another in a free, democratic society, as well as the many skills for an active participation in family, community, and industry, in provincial, national and global settings.

He was fond of quoting a staunch supporter of public education who said, “Never lose sight of the fact that the child as the learner is not only the centre of the system, but the only reason for its existence.” He beckoned graduates to “honour your teachers and be courageous in all that you do. The world is at your feet.” And he shared his musings from the Chair in bi-weekly columns published in The Sudbury Star.

In addition to his work at the local level, Ernie Checkeris played a leadership role among his elected peers. He is a past president of the Northern Ontario Public School Trustees’ Association, he was instrumental in the formation of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association and he represented the province on the Canadian School Boards’ Association.

He is the recipient of many awards and honours, including the Community Builders Award of Excellence in the Education Category (2004); a Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal (2003); the Fred Sheridan Award presented by Cambrian College (2002), the Paul Harris Fellowship presented by the Rotary Club of Sudbury (1996); the OPSTF Meritorious Award (1990); the FWTAO Citation (1989); the OSSTF Lamp of Learning Award (1988); and the Sudbury Board of Education Award for Excellence (1987). 

Ernie Checkeris has an Honorary Doctor of Canon Law from Thorneloe University at Laurentian where he has been a founder, former Chancellor and long-time board member. The theatre at Thorneloe was renamed in honour of Ernie Checkeris in 2011.

-30-

Media Contact:

Nicole Charette, Senior Advisor, 

Corporate Communications and Strategic Planning, 

Rainbow District School Board, 705.674.3171, ext. 7217.