In My Opinion: Provincial supervision will negatively impact Toronto school boards and education

By MICHELLE AARTS and KEVIN MORRISON

This past spring the Minister of Education put five Ontario school boards ‘under supervision’ to address financial concerns, despite independent audits of Toronto Catholic (by Deloitte LLP) and Toronto District (by Price Waterhouse Cooper) that indicated no evidence of wrongdoing or mismanagement and confirmed that both boards are well governed by their respective trustees and staff.

Two-thirds of Ontario school boards are currently in deficit or barely making ends meet, totalling $200 million in deficit provincially this year. It is important that Toronto families and communities understand what ministry supervision is and how it affects local schools and education.

What do school board trustees do?

A school trustee’s mandate is to support student success and wellbeing through governance of policy, program priorities, and finances. They are required to operate in public, in consultation with the community, and they serve in a myriad of roles that support student needs, build community partnership, and determine the long-term management and success of the education system.

Trustees are an important community resource, connecting daily with families, school councils, and neighbours to help navigate the education system. There are numerous reasons why families don’t trust the education system and trustees help build relationships and ensure that the correct staff are supporting individual situations. Positive relationships are critical to family engagement in education.

Trustees are responsible for identifying and reporting the needs and priorities of their community to ensure the system addresses gaps and inconsistencies. For school boards under supervision it is hard to imagine how a single individual can support all families and communities, and meet all the requirements for effective, public governance.

What is a Ministry supervisor?

The Minister of Education can appoint a supervisor to take over the “duties of the Board of Trustees” for a variety of reasons. In the past, such as for Peel DSB in 2020, supervisors were education experts who worked with trustees and staff to address issues identified by the Ministry; they continued to hold public meetings and consult with families.

The supervisors appointed to TCDSB and TDSB are Frank Benedetto, an insurance litigator, and Rohit Gupta, a Metrolinx advisor. Trustees have been dismissed, there are no longer public board meetings, and supervisor decisions are simply posted after the fact. Decisions are being handed down from Queen’s Park rather than based on local consultation. This significant shift in practice removes public consultation and accountability.

The role of trustee isn’t about the elected individual; they are the persons elected by the community to provide voice to local concerns. Loss of voice for families means lack of oversight for the system and diminished advocacy.

Families in each board are now directed to a single generic email address rather than a person they can connect with. Parents and disability advocates are sounding alarms, highlighting that families’ needs are going unheard and calls/emails unanswered by the supervisors. For families of students with special needs their trustee is a critical resource for support and advocacy.

In addition school board advisory committees and partnerships have been ‘paused until further notice’. There is no longer a mechanism for the community to delegate to the school board. All decisions are now happening behind closed doors without public consultation or communication.

Centralized decisions instead of local priorities

Each school board serves a unique community with local needs and priorities for programs. Toronto is one of the most diverse cities in the world with the broadest range of student needs and so Toronto schools offer a diverse array of supports and programs for student engagement, and positive experiences and outcomes. Many of these programs are not recognized or funded by the Ministry.

Supervisors are currently reviewing local programs and budgets and this summer the TDSB supervisor cancelled a board decision and increased class sizes for special education classes. The resources and programs that make Toronto schools unique are at risk under centralized, bureaucratic decision making, especially if those supports and programs cost more than the government is willing to invest.

Each school board funds the local priorities needed to support success and wellbeing. There is a significant disconnect between the cost of education and the funding provided by the Ontario government.

The Ministry does not fund many costs including the full cost of federal CPP and EI obligations ($43M gap for TDSB). Special education is underfunded at 71 of the 72 Ontario school boards with a total gap of $800 million this year ($38M TDSB, $25M TCDSB).

Loss of local funding

Toronto programs and resources, including mental health and safety, libraries, class sizes, pools and swim instruction, outdoor education, music, community support staff, and technology, are unfunded or only partially funded by the province.

Toronto’s education systems have steadily improved engagement and graduation rates, in part because they have chosen over the years to support more than Back to Basics. One impact this fall is the additional chaos caused by forcing schools to comply strictly with the Ministry’s class size funding, rather than funding stability for students and staff.

Both TCDSB and TDSB have cut from central management over the years in order to maintain local programming. The Minister has tasked supervisors with fixing deficits, however the supervisor appointed to Thames Valley DSB in April recently released a new budget that cuts more than 100 school supports, and has doubled the TVDSB deficit to $32 million.

The supervisors at TCDSB and TDSB could force compliance with Ministry funding, but not without significant cuts to staff and programs. Simply reducing spending won’t help students or generate the investments our children need for success.

Premier (Doug) Ford and Education Minister (Paul) Calandra speculate that they might close and sell schools in order to balance budgets at supervised boards. Five schools in TVDSB have recently been flagged for closure.

Selling schools to float the operating budget has never been allowed, it is a bad financial practice that does not address underlying cost or Ministry underfunding.

Ironically, the Ministry has refused to allow local boards to do their own work to review and consolidate undercapacity schools since 2018. More importantly, school closures should never be a strictly financial decision. Some schools, like alternative schools or special education sites, are purposefully small to support student needs.

There also must be space nearby to accept new students. School consolidations must involve community consultations, to hear and understand the needs of the local community. Under supervision decisions about school closures can be made by Queen’s Park, where the government has long eyed valuable Toronto properties for development.

— Michelle Aarts, Ph.D., and Kevin Morrison are Beaches-East York residents, parents, and elected trustees for TDSB (Toronto District School Board) and TCDSB (Toronto Catholic District School Board) respectively.