Toronto Votes 2026: School trustees elected for public, Catholic and French school boards in the city

Toronto residents voted in their representatives for school trustees among the four boards that represent the city during Monday night’s municipal election.

Voters had to select trustees for the Toronto District School Board, Toronto Catholic District School Board, the Conseil scolaire Viamonde (French public school board): and the Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir (French Catholic school board) in the Oct. 26 election. Voters select their trustee depending on which school board they are supporters of and eligible to vote for.

In the case of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), this year’s municipal election looked a lot different that past ones as the Ontario government cut the number of public school trustees almost in half earlier this year. Instead of 22 TDSB trustees to be voted in there were only 12 positions to be elected this time around. The province’s move led to the merging of wards and some notable absences among those registered to run for TDSB trustee seats.

For East Toronto voters this means the TDSB wards that used to separately cover Beaches-East York and Scarborough Southwest have been merged into one that will be called Ward 10. For those who had a public school trustee representing their ward of Toronto-Danforth, that has now been merged with two downtown wards to become Ward 5.

Neither of the incumbent TDSB trustees for Beaches-East York, Scarborough Southwest or Toronto-Danforth sought re-election in the TDSB’s new Ward 10. Elected as the area’s new public school trustee on Monday night was  Karen Emmerson with 18,382 votes. Nine candidates in total had run for the position.

Second place in the Ward 10 TDSB race went to Marisa Sterling with 15,341 votes. In third place was Jocelyne Poirier with 10,205 votes; fourth was Malik Ahmad with 4,145 votes; fifth was Ahnaaf Hassan with 3,970 votes; sixth was Shawn Li with 3,721 votes; seventh was Glenn Kremp with 2,415 votes; eighth was Md Sazibul Islam with 1,315 votes; and ninth was Azim Dewan with 1,047 votes.

In Ward 5 (which included Toronto-Danforth and a number of downtown wards), Jennifer Volk was elected the TDSB trustee with 28,535 votes. Volk is the co-founder of East End Parents for Education.

Eight other candidates had also sought the Ward 5 TDSB trustee position. In second place was Andrew Massey with 9,051 votes. Third place went to Maureen Larkin with 8,346 votes; fourth was Elina Feyinber with 6,443 votes; fifth was Gus Stefanis with 4,,757 votes; sixth was Andrene Gregory with 4,744 votes; seventh was Jared Kolb with 3,496 votes; and eighth was Janine Viret with 1,995 votes; and ninth was David Gulyas with 1,791 votes.

The votes for Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) trustee featured two wards that are included in the Beach Metro Community News coverage area — Ward 11 (which takes in part of Beaches-East York and Toronto-Danforth) and Ward 12 (which includes Scarborough Southwest).

Longtime Incumbent Angela Kennedy was re-elected as the TCDSB trustee for Ward 11. This will be Kennedy’s eighth term as the TCDSB trustee for the area. She was first elected to the position in the 2000 municipal election. On Monday night, Kennedy won with 11, 759 votes while the only other candidate in the race, Anto Perera recorded 3,999 votes.

In the TCDB’s Ward 12, incumbent Nancy Crawford was the only candidate registered and she was acclaimed to the position.

Some portions of Conseil scolaire Viamonde’s Ward 2 and Ward 3 are included in the Beach Metro Community News coverage area. In Ward 2, Benoit Fortin was the only candidate registered so he was acclaimed to the position. In Ward 3, Jean-Francois L’Heureux and Anna-Karyna Ruszkowski, with 1,806 votes, was elected as the trustee over Jean-Francois L’Heureux who had 846 votes.

The Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir board only has two wards in Toronto, and the one making up the eastern half of the city (Ward 4 Toronto Est) was won by Rhea Dechaine with 947 votes. Second place went to Derek McNulty with 201 votes, while Clescadine Gustave was third with 182 votes.