Is Ontario’s Education Department Smarter Than a Third Grader?
We don’t want to criticise our public officials. Still, the convoluted decisions the Board is making to replace a single school trustee with a province-appointed supervisor (ostensibly for better financial accountability) and then establish a special office at schools to address parents’ concerns seem far from fiscally sound.
Our reasoning is straightforward: How cost-effective is it to replace one individual with another and then add multiple (presumably) additional people to support that second person, all of whom will be performing the same duties as the original individual?
Confused? So are we. But let’s move on to today’s news.
Parents of school-aged children may want to remember the date: June 27, 2025. On this day, Ontario’s Education Minister announced that province-appointed supervisors would replace parent-appointed school trustees, citing financial ineptitude as the reason for this change. However, this decision overlooked the human aspect; parents and the trustees they appointed traditionally maintained a special relationship, with trustees serving as a vital link between students’ families and school management.
Trustees from five school boards were almost immediately replaced with government-appointed supervisors. These boards included the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), the Toronto Catholic School Board, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, and the Thames Valley District School Board in western Ontario.
This change effectively transferred control over the day-to-day decisions of these boards to the provincial government, removing it from trustees who had been elected in October 2022.
What was notably absent from this upheaval was the fact that it granted the Ontario Education Minister the power to take control of school boards in the future, allowing for the sidelining of trustees for reasons unrelated to financial mismanagement and without requiring a recommendation from a third party.
Recent updates add another layer of complexity to our school system’s manoeuvrings.
“Ontario school boards will soon be required to establish an office called the ‘Student and Family Support Office‘ to provide parents and guardians with support regarding their child’s education when concerns need to be escalated. These new offices will serve as an additional resource for families seeking answers on broader community concerns, as well as contentious or complex issues that require escalation after discussions with the school,” stated the press release.
For everyone’s sake, let’s hope this initiative is successful and that no additional personnel, offices, or, most importantly, funds are needed to fulfil the role of that one original trustee.
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