Ontario’s education minister is warning that he could still take further action to “refocus” trustees in the wake of new legislation that significantly curtails their powers.
Education Minister Paul Calandra made the comment during a news conference at Queen’s Park on Monday as he discussed sweeping changes to school board governance in the province, including a cap on the number of elected trustees and the creation of new non-elected executive positions that will largely be responsible for school board finances going forward.
“The fundamental thing here is I wanted to make sure we removed the distractions that come from trustees from the system so the new role of a trustee will be significantly reduced from what it was before,” Calandra said. “To be clear I will not hesitate to continue to look at the role of trustees should more refinement be needed to refocus trustees - even after this legislation - on simply representing parents and students.”
Calandra said that the legislation tabled by the government means that the “role of a trustee is changing dramatically in Ontario.”
He also said that there are no current plans to restore the powers of the eight school boards that are currently under provincial supervision, including the Toronto District School Board.
This despite municipal elections in October where trustees in all eight boards will be on the ballot.
“Those boards will remain under supervision for as long as it takes to put them back on the right track full stop,” Calandra said. “As long as it takes to have them into a balanced budget system, as long as it takes to ensure that not only are they in a balanced budget but they are rebuilding their reserves, as long as it takes to make sure the communities are confident the boards are prepared to put students parents and teachers first. They will not be returned a minute before.”
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario slammed the changes to school board governance as an “an unprecedented rollback of local democracy” in a statement released Monday.
Meanwhile, Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation President Martha Hradowy said in an interview with CTV News Toronto that the legislation amounts to the “corporatization of the publicly funded education system.”
“Every parent, every Ontarian should be concerned about the centralization of our publicly funded education system and the lack of local voice that is going to be lost in this legislation,” she said.
For his part, Calandra said that the legislation will not curtail the ability of trustees to be an advocate for their communities.
“I am told over and over, and over again that the main reason people choose to be trustees is because they want to represent their community and they want to be their community’s voice of parents and student at the board. There is nothing in this legislation that reduces their ability to do so,” he said. “This legislation reduces their ability to cause division within the system...”
