TORONTO – “Monday is the next step in how we ensure that our education system is focused on students, parents and supporting teachers and delivering a quality education”: this is what Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra said last Friday, announcing the introduction, tomorrow, of the school board governance legislation.
Currently, eight of them are under “supervision” by administrators appointed by the Province, while elected trustees are suspended from their duties. The reason: management—particularly financial management—that Minister Calandra has deemed at least questionable and in need of review. The eight supervised school boards are those of Toronto, both public and Catholic (TDSB and TCDSB), the Catholic boards of York (YCDSB) and Dufferin-Peel (DPCDSB), and the public boards of Peel (PDSB), Ottawa-Carleton (OCDSB), Thames Valley (TVDSB), and Near North (NNDSB).
Now, after several months of provincial supervision which likely allowed Minister Calandra to better understand where intervention is needed to put the boards back on track, the reform is arriving. Although the minister did not provide specific details about the content of the new law, he suggested that the Ministry will have more direct control over school boards and therefore over Ontario schools.
“For 50 years, the Ministry of Education has felt that the best way to deal with things is to download to school boards that don’t have the ability or the capacity to deal with problems,” Calandra said. “Monday is about bringing back that level of responsibility and leadership through the Ministry of Education.”
Recently, parents and teachers have been surprised by several cuts made unilaterally by the supervisors—decisions that would normally have been discussed in public school board meetings. These include, for example, cuts to international language programs at the TCDSB and reductions in full-time teaching positions at the TDSB, particularly in so-called “model schools” that support disadvantaged communities. These are early signs of a “plan” that will become clearer tomorrow with the introduction of the legislation.
In the pic above, Minister Paul Calandra during a meeting at a school (photo from Twitter X – @PaulCalandra)