Ontario school board takeovers a distraction from chronic underfunding: teacher and student reps
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As Ontario’s education minister mulls eliminating the role of school board trustees provincewide, groups representing Ontario educators and students say the province is taking over boards to distract from its own chronic underfunding of public education.
Members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), and the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association (OSTA-AECO), along with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, hosted a news conference at Queen’s Park Tuesday to decry provincial takeovers of seven school boards over the past year.
“Supervision doesn’t address chronic underfunding, it does not solve staffing shortages, it does not reduce class sizes,” said OSSTF president Martha Hradowy.
“What it does is it distracts from the day-to-day realities that students, education workers and teachers are living through in classrooms,” she said.
ETFO president David Mastin said the province has underfunded public education by $6.3 billion since 2018, citing a 2025 report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Since Paul Calandra took over as education minister last March, the Ontario government has placed seven school boards under supervision, saying boards mismanaged finances.
Calandra said last month that York Catholic District School Board may also soon be under provincial supervision after having depleted its reserves.
WATCH | Trustee role could be eliminated, says Ontario education minister:
Education minister eyes axing trustee role, analyzes expenses
Ontario’s education minister recently criticized a Toronto school board trustee’s expenses. As CBC’s Lorenda Reddekopp explains, this comes as the province eyes eliminating the position of school board trustees entirely.
Calandra said in December he is open to the idea of eliminating the role of trustees from all Ontario school boards in 2026 in favour of provincial supervisors. All 72 boards were put on notice last year to direct funds to the classroom.
Educators say province shifting blame
School boards are only in dire financial straits because the provincial government has underfunded education, the groups at Tuesday’s conference said.
“These are not school board failures,” said Hradowy.
“They are predictable results of years of underfunding. Instead of taking responsibility for those choices, this government is reframing an underfunding crisis as a governance issue,” she said.
ETFO president Mastin said educators’ message to the province is simple: “End these takeovers, restore democratic school board governance and invest adequately in public education.”
In an emailed statement, Emma Testani, a spokesperson for Calandra said the minister will always put students first and “will not hesitate to step in when school boards fail to stay on track.”
She said the province intervened in different cases for several reasons: to stop “the imminent firing” of classroom teachers, to respond to public funds being spent on a luxury hotel suite at a Blue Jays game, and after it learned students “were forced to attend classes in a half-demolished school.”
“In other cases, where serious financial mismanagement threatened critical supports for students,” she said. “OSSTF, ETFO, and OSTA-AECO should clarify which of these student-focused interventions they oppose.”
Groups say students, parents losing their voice
In November, the province passed a new law giving the education minister the power to more easily put school boards under provincial supervision. Calandra has said provincially-appointed supervisors will help bring more resources into the classroom, end division within school boards and make it easier for parents to access the system.
WATCH | New law gives Ontario education minister new powers:
Ontario government passes controversial education bill
The Ontario government has passed Bill 33, granting the education minister the power to appoint a supervisor to take over school boards and require school resource officer programs. CBC’s Lorenda Reddekopp has the details.
But students and parents have argued otherwise, saying removing elected school board trustees leaves them without a representative at their schools.
Ahnaaf Hassan, a grade 12 student and Toronto District School Board (TDSB) student trustee, said Tuesday that he has not been able to meet this school year with the board’s provincial supervisor about student issues.
“The concerns of students are not heard. The TDSB is completely shutting out student and community voices,” he said. The TDSB was appointed a provincial supervisor in June. CBC Toronto reached out to supervisor Rohit Gupta for comment, but did not immediately received a response.
Students and parents now have no say in issues that directly impact them, he said, like proposed school pool closures, cuts to music programs or the end of caps on classroom sizes for certain grades.
