Image Credit: CBC
By Mary Turcotte, SEDRA Board Member
It was June 27, 2025. The school year was ending and my focus was shifting to upcoming summer plans and activities. An email appeared in my inbox from Toronto District School Board (TDSB) Director of Education Clayton La Touche:
“I am writing to share with you that as of this morning, the Minister of Education has placed the Toronto District School Board under supervision. As such the powers of Trustees are now vested in the Minister of Education, who has appointed a supervisor. Effective as of 11:00 a.m. today, Rohit Gupta has been appointed as the supervisor and more information is available here.” Gupta is a former Metrolinx supervisor and was an economic advisor to Stephen Harper.
This takeover impacted four school boards in Ontario and has since expanded to two more. The move was positioned as a response to budget and governance challenges.
Toronto Catholic District School Board chair Markus de Domenico articulated the concern, noting that parents “vote for trustees to be their voice, and that voice has been taken away.”
On December 1st, more news dropped, taking the province’s largest city’s public education system, and others towards increased bureaucracy and away from the benefits that School Trustees provide our schools and neighbourhoods: in January, new “Student and Family Support Offices” will open in the TDSB as well as at 4 other school boards in Ontario.
Will the staff at the Student and Family Support Offices that are set to open in January be equipped to support families like Trustee Laskin have? Will they go above and beyond and advocate for families and understand anything beyond their script and the bottom line? How many staff in this office will be fully prepared and motivated to replace the efforts of 22 elected TDSB Trustees? And how many people will staff the office, how much will they be paid, and who will they be most immediately accountable to? At least with School Trustees it was clear they were accountable to local voters.
Now, as we come to the end of the calendar year and less than 6 months after Director of Education La Touche’s initial email, it has just been announced that La Touche, who over the last 30 years had worked his way up from an elementary school teacher in the TDSB to the Director of Education, was fired by Gupta and replaced by Stacey Zucker.
So what does all this mean for parents and students in our neighbourhood? As a parent of a child at Davisville Public School and a member of the SEDRA Board, I’ve seen first-hand the impact that Shelley Laskin has had during her time as Trustee for Ward 8 – keeping parents and community members informed on changes to our schools (Cody, Davisville, Eglinton, Oriole Park, Hodgson), advocating for school safety and improvements, and proactively working with school administrators, school councils, other elected representatives including Councillor Matlow and numerous other stakeholders to move forward initiatives that benefit students, their families and our school communities.
We as a community elect Trustees like Laskin because of their experience and knowledge of the school system, their focus on improving the experience for students, making resources available to families, and their commitment to making our community better. They have specific local knowledge of our needs and challenges and are a clear point of escalation for parents, students, and community members if there are concerns about schools, programs, or policies. In Ontario, voter turnout for school board trustees was 36% in 2022, which is similar to the turnout for mayors, reeves, regional chairs and councillors, according to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario – they all deserve the same respect. Laskin and her colleagues articulate it clearly in an opinion piece published by the Toronto Star.
The Ford government appears to disagree with (or refuse to acknowledge) the value Trustees bring to our communities and have stripped them of their role. “Their honorarium of roughly $24,000 has been suspended. They have been instructed not to communicate with their constituents or engage in activities in their official capacity. No issuing newsletters, updates, or media statements. They no longer have access to TDSB office space, or to their TDSB emails and phones,” explains The Local.
The province continues to cite budget issues to justify seizing control of a system and undermining the democratic processes that were in place to elect School Trustees. However, as many argue they have contributed to this situation by underfunding schools, essentially setting them up to fail to set the stage for a “necessary” takeover.
It’s also hard to imagine that a school board that has ~239,000 enrolled students will be better served by a single, undefined Student and Family Support Office, as it will be hard to replace the efforts that 22 School Trustees give their communities for a comparatively modest honorarium.
The Ford government’s budget rhetoric distracts from the fact that their back-of-the-napkin actions are weakening local democratic oversight and centralizing power over Ontario schools and could cost more than the Trustee honoraria being replaced. Further, the supervisors that have been put into place have partisan political backgrounds which are often in stark contrast with our elected Trustees, calling into question what other sweeping mandates could come next to impact curriculum, policy or equity initiatives in our schools.
Do you have concerns about this situation? It matters that parents and community members make their concerns known. Learn more and sign the “Democracy is not outdated” petition on the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association site.
Here are emails for:
Interim Director of Education Stacey Zucker: ac.no1769266215.bsdt1769266215@ecif1769266215fos™1769266215ârotc1769266215erid1769266215
Toronto St. Paul’s MPP Stephanie Smyth (west of Mt. Pleasant): gro.a1769266215lo.la1769266215rebil1769266215@oc.p1769266215pm.ht1769266215ymss1769266215
Don Valley West MPP Stephanie Bowman (east of Mt. Pleasant): gro.a1769266215lo.la1769266215rebil1769266215@oc.p1769266215pm.na1769266215mwobs1769266215
Minister of Education Paul Calandra: ac.oi1769266215ratno1769266215@ude.1769266215retsi1769266215nim1769266215
Premier Doug Ford: gro.a1769266215lo.cp1769266215@ocdr1769266215of.gu1769266215od1769266215
We suggest you email one of them and cc the rest to share your perspective.