What the Ford government’s education reform means for boards under supervision

The Ford government’s decision to keep trustees in place long-term — albeit with limited powers — will not mean the end of supervision at eight Ontario school boards, the education minister says.

But, despite keeping direct control of some of the largest school boards in the province, Paul Calandra said people should run for election to take their place if and when he ends supervision at the boards.

If candidates decide not to run, the minister said Monday, he’ll select people to fill the vacancies.

“If people choose not to run for that position and want to wait until we return the supervised boards to trustees, that’s fine,” he said. “The ministry has the statutory powers to fill those vacancies.”

On Monday, Calandra unveiled his long-awaited education reforms, keeping trustees in place across public, Catholic and French boards, but limiting their pay, expenses and say over the board’s annual budget.

The education minister said the new changes would not lead to an immediate end to supervision, with government appointees still running eight boards, including Toronto public, Toronto Catholic, Ottawa-Carleton, Peel public and Dufferin-Peel Catholic.

“Those boards will remain under supervision for as long as it takes to put them back on the right track,” Calandra told reporters.

Elections for new trustees will take place in October, with only Toronto public seeing a cut to the number of trustees sitting on its board.

Even for boards that are under supervision, ballots will be cast for trustees. Those who win elections at supervised jobs will not receive any pay or responsibility until the government decides to end supervision.

Jill Promoli, an elected school board trustee in the Peel District School Board, said over the course of the provincial takeover, elected officials have heard very little from the Minister of Education directly.

“I have had no communication from the Minister of Education, absolutely nothing. So there doesn’t seem to be any respect from this minister for the elected role of trustee,” Promoli said.

The PDSB trustee was first elected in 2022, at a time when her board was under supervision following investigations into racism and discrimination in early 2020.

“This is the funny thing, too, putting boards under supervision is not a new thing,” she said.

“The Peel District School Board was under supervision, but trustees were not out of their roles. They had a diminished role, but they were still there. They were still able to attend meetings. They were supporting their community. And so when I was elected, I was selected to a board under supervision.”

The changes Calandra has tabled will reduce trustee responsibility over key financial decisions, something he said would “potentially” pave the way to ending supervision.

“But, as I said, there’s a lot of challenges in each of the supervised boards, for a lot of different reasons, not just financially,” he added.

“One board that you saw trustee infighting — more than one board — where trustee infighting basically was costing millions of dollars, in other instances, they were ignoring conflict of interest issues. They’re under supervision for a number of reasons.”

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