School boards under supervision: Paul Calandra wants to swear in trustees but give them no power
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Ten for ten: progressive trustee candidates win at the TDSB

School Magazine  – 2026-10-27
Of the ten progressive trustee candidates endorsed by education workers, labour and community groups across Toronto all ten won a seat on the Toronto District School Board. This is remarkable at a time when the Tory knives are out for local public education.

Only three mayoralty candidates answer questions about food and housing

William Paul  – 2026-10-23
Only three out of fifty-three candidates answered the questions put to them by Elementary Teachers of Toronto: Would they support educator involvement on the CreateTO Board? Would they support a city-wide lunch programme? Would they ensure educator consultation on future city planning involving the TDSB?

Communities, schools and the 2026 election

School Magazine  – 2026-10-21
Imagine a school in which kids could interact and learn without fear of having to move because their families can’t cope with the latest rent increase. Imagine such a place where hunger is never a consideration: a school where people gather – one that’s a hub of the community.

Education starts in the home: Why Toronto’s municipal election matters

School Magazine  – 2026-10-19
Public education doesn’t begin and end at the school doors. It begins at home, in our neighbourhoods, and in the conditions that shape children’s lives.

When families struggle to pay rent, when children arrive at school hungry, and when educators can’t afford to live in the communities where they teach, these aren’t separate issues. They directly affect what happens in our classrooms. These factors don’t just improve education, they determine it 

Support your progressive school trustee

School Magazine  – 2026-10-07
Vote for a progressive local trustee. Doing so is an act of resistance to the Ford government intent on riding roughshod over education.

Support trustee candidate Deborah Williams

School Magazine  – 2026-09-25
Deborah Williams, an ETT-endorsed candidate, deserves your support in Ward 7: Toronto St. Paul’s, University Rosedale and Toronto Centre. She is an incumbent candidate who champions transparency and access to that public good we cherish as education.

Fordwatch 3: The saga continues

Susan Atkins  – 2026-07-20
Forgetting is a basic ingredient in any government’s recipe for holding on to power. That’s why School Magazine has kept a tab on the efforts of this government to act for itself and its friends.

Here is Fordwatch 3 and hopefully there won't be a Fordwatch 4. If you’ve forgotten headlines, stories and details, just click on the Fordwatch links for a reminder.

Updated to September 9, 2026

TDSB “modernizes” central administration with deep cuts

William Paul  – 2026-05-13
In the good old days of 2025, the Toronto DSB would have received its Ministry of Education (MOE) grant allocations. Trustees would already have spent time figuring out how to make do with the Tories’ magic shrinking budget. But now that’s all changed under the supervisor Rohit Gupta. Now, the TDSB makes the cuts and then Minister of Education Paul Calandra decides what’s going to happen next.

Teacher shortage myths enable social inequities

Andrew Wilkin  – 2026-05-05
The Ontario government is changing teachers’ education from a two year program to one year. This change is largely because there is supposedly a shortage of teachers. But data shows this is not the case.

Bill 101: the burn continues

William Paul  – 2026-04-24
In part 2 we can see more about how Bill 101 is about politics, not policy. Its lack of reason, rationale or plain common sense demonstrates how the Ford government sets out to solve problems without bothering to understand them.

Bill 101: burning down school boards

William Paul  – 2026-04-17
Bill 101 has nothing to do with putting students first. It’s about stripping local democracy, taking even greater control over what teachers do in the classroom and running education under the neoliberal creed: if it works in business it works with people.

The supervision budget blues

William Paul  – 2026-04-13
Supervision was supposed to clear up fiscal mismanagement and get recalcitrant school boards on the right page. Right now, it's hard to even find the book as school communities prepare themselves for cuts to staff.
NB: PLEASE LOOK AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE FOR BREAKING NEWS ABOUT THE POSITION OF TRUSTEES ANNOUNCED JUST AFTER THIS WAS PUBLISHED.

We are all Minneapolis: Schools and teachers on the frontlines of fighting fascism

Editors of Rethinking Schools  – 2026-04-08
As 2026 began, the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Metro Surge, deploying more than 3,000 federal immigration agents to the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area — triple the size of both cities’ police forces. As this issue went to print, the Trump administration announced it was drawing down this occupying force — but the devastation they caused, and the resistance they inspired has become a turning point in the fight against rising fascism in the United States.

Facing the dark tower: educators and the TDSB

William Paul  – 2026-04-01
Educators and their school communities really must organize and obstruct the increasing and arbitrary misuse of power at the TDSB. We need our local unions who defend their members’ rights. More than ever, we need to bolster them as they defend their schools and education workers from a school board in chaos.