Legislation tabled at Queens Park on Monday looks to completely overhaul the role of school board trustees, but Ontario’s education minister stopped short of earlier musings about eliminating the role altogether. Paul Calandra has tabled a bill that would cut the number of trustees at the Toronto District School Board nearly in half, diminish trustees’ budget responsibilities at English-language boards and mostly remove their role in central bargaining. Calandra has floated several overhauls of school board governance since not long after he came into the portfolio one year ago, zeroing in on trustees. “I recognize that governance structures must evolve and, where appropriate, be refined. However, reform should be informed by evidence and performance—not imposed uniformly without regard for results,” said London District Catholic School Board Trustee Gabe Pizzuti in reaction to Monday’s news. In his tenure, Calandra has placed eight school boards, including London’s Thames Valley District School Board, under provincial supervision and has previously said he couldn’t see ever handing the boards currently under supervision back to trustees. “I wanted to make sure we removed the distractions that come from trustees from the system so the new roles of a trustee will be significantly reduced from what it was before,” Education Minister Paul Calandra said at a news conference following the tabling of the bill. “Vastly reducing their ability to disrupt the system, vastly reducing their ability to cause division in the system and refocusing them on what I am hearing, which is advocating on behalf of parents in the system,” he added. He has singled out the expenses of trustees as evidence of a need for governance changes, and the bill would prevent trustees from billing taxpayers for personal accessories and “unnecessary” travel, meal, and hospitality expenses, for example. In the classroom, the government is planning to mandate that teachers use approved learning resources, such as lesson plans, teacher guides and digital interactive tools including games and presentations. Attendance would account for a percentage of students’ final marks in high school. “High‑performing boards like the London District Catholic School Board have demonstrated consistent success, and sweeping, one‑size‑fits‑all changes risk weakening systems that are clearly working," asserted Pizzuti. In its own statement, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) said it “rejects” the legislation entirely, calling it an “unprecedented rollback of local democracy.” With files from CTV Toronto’s Phil Tsekouras and The Canadian Press
