Ontario’s school boards finally face accountability

The Ford government is stepping in after years of waste, mismanagement and sliding public trust

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Ontario, like several other provinces, has been repeatedly frustrated with dysfunctional school boards and school trustees. A new direction for Ontario’s beleaguered education system is almost a guarantee. It will be interesting to see which route Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative (PC) government ultimately takes to help improve everything from the classroom environment to shaping young minds.

Five school boards were taken over by the province earlier this year: the Toronto District School Board, Toronto Catholic District School Board, Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and Thames Valley District School Board.

It’s fair to say that Education Minister Paul Calandra made this move as a warning to the other 72 boards to get their educational houses in order. As he told Toronto’s Newstalk 1010 in a radio interview in late August, he’s “absolutely unconvinced the best way to accomplish that is through school trustees.”

We can now add a sixth board to the mix. Ontario took control of the Near North District School Board last week. “I will not stand by while a board’s incompetence directly impacts student achievement,” Calandra said in a Dec. 1 media release. “This decisive action should serve as a warning to any board that is failing in its responsibility to put students first.”

Why is this happening? There have been several instances of wasteful spending and questionable judgment by provincial school boards that were impossible to ignore.

The Toronto District School Board, for instance, was involved in an enormous media firestorm last September related to a field trip to Grassy Narrows River Run that included overtures to Palestinian solidarity. While the Dec. 30, 2024, final report stated that students weren’t forced to join this protest, the TDSB was criticized for having “failed to comply with its own policy and procedure that are intended to ensure student safety.” Moreover, “the emotional safety of some Jewish students was compromised.”

In another high-profile example, the Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board trustees took a $45,000 trip to Italy last October and spent over $100,000 on religious art and a large crucifix. This led to not only a public relations nightmare but an apology. “The board of trustees wishes to express regret regarding the events related to the trip to Italy this summer,” board chair Rick Petrella told CTV News. “We recognize that the optics and actions of this trip were not favourable [sic], and although it was undertaken in good faith to promote our Catholic identity and to do something special for our two new schools, we acknowledge that it was not the best course of action.”

What options could the Ford PCs consider, or be considering, to improve this situation with school boards and trustees? While nothing has been revealed publicly, there are a few possibilities at their disposal.

One option is to blow everything up and start over again. Ontario could disband the various school boards and fire the current crop of (mostly) left-leaning school trustees. This would give the province an opportunity to clean up and reform this level of government, including reducing the number of trustees per board, setting stricter standards for spending and fiscal responsibility, and so forth.

That’s what basically happened to the Calgary Board of Education between 1998 and 1999. The city’s school trustees were mostly left-leaning, except for two individuals—Peggy Anderson and Danielle Smith, the current premier of Alberta. They didn’t like what was happening in Calgary and attempted to reform education by suggesting more school closures, higher fees and better education strategies.

While Anderson and Smith promoted a fiscally conservative approach, their colleagues regularly pushed back during contentious meetings. The school board ultimately self-destructed and the Alberta PC government dissolved it within 11 months. Heading back to the drawing board and cleaning up Calgary’s educational system turned out to be the right move.

Another thought would be to follow Nova Scotia’s logical model of setting up a provincial advisory council. Seven elected school boards were dissolved in 2018 in favour of one advisory council that was “made up of people appointed by the minister of education,” according to CBC News. Conseil scolaire acadien provincial, a francophone school board, wasn’t affected by this decision. “I believe that by making these changes we will see a system that is more unified, that is more responsive and able to adapt to the needs of our kids long term,” then-education minister Zach Churchill told the media.

There’s also a good argument to be made that school trustees could be permanently eliminated and authority moved fully into provincial hands. It would help save a significant amount of taxpayer money and enable some or all of these funds to be redirected into different areas. The one obvious concern would be Catholic school boards, which would be far more difficult to eliminate in totality. Then again, the Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic School Board controversy could be used as a backdrop for reforming education in this province.

What will Ontario do? We’ll find out when the school bell rings.

Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.