Trustee candidates vs the Tories: backgrounder to the municipal election

School Magazine  – 2026-09-30

Progressive trustee candidates run for office with a vision of well-run schools that meet the needs of their students. But they’re up against a Ford government that has, for eight years, done its best to move that fundamental goal out of reach. The past year or so has been eye-opener as far as its tactics of slash and burn are concerned.

Here’s that story in a nutshell:

 

Dumping trustees

The Ministry of Education (MOE) always says it’s putting more money into education than ever before but it’s not even covering inflation. Over the years we’ve seen a $6.5 billion dollar cut from school boards which they’ve had to swallow by shrinking programmes and resources for kids. By June 2025, school boards were having a lot of trouble balancing their budgets. They still managed to do it.

What Minister of Education Paul Calandra do about that? He took over 5 of them including the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), putting them under the control of supervisors with little to no connection to education. Trustees were just dismissed – no pay, no access to the people who voted for them, no ability to debate or vote on any issues at all.

That’s education today in Ontario.

 

The TDSB and the Dark Tower

In Toronto, Calandra put Rohit Gupta in charge of all board decisions and paid him an annual salary of up to $350 000; trustees were making $25 000 a year until they were let go. Gupta got right down to work raising caps to add more special needs kids to a classroom, firing a newly hired director of education because the board needed a “fresh start” and ending a lottery system aimed at making sure all kids in the board got a fair chance to attend specialized schools. For good measure, he got rid of the cap for the number grade 4-8 students in a classroom.

Gupta did it all without holding public meetings, consulting parents or attending meetings for interest groups like the Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC). It’s as though he operated from a dark tower sending out decisions he’d made by carrier pigeon. No discussion, no explanation, no interest. You can see for yourself right here.

 

Support?

What about those trustees? They couldn’t officially support their constituents though some did anyway. Paul Calandra decided to replace them with Student and Family Support Offices that would field the thousands of questions about issues related to the 235 000 kids at TDSB schools.

There were 2 people assigned to answer phones. It made the worst call centres look positively accessible.

 

Intimidating teachers

When there’s no one to question power, things can go south quickly. Look at Bowmore Rd Jr and Middle Public School last winter. Middle school teachers had a fairly minor dispute with the school principal over the way subjects would be taught. The principal’s view prevailed; teachers said they wouldn’t be able to do voluntary extra-curricular activities while they changed their way of handling their work. The result? Two highly regarded teachers were fired on the spot and eight others suspended without pay for a week. There was no inquiry from the Dark Tower into how this all came about, no consideration for teachers, parents, the community and most of all, the students. Is this how things were supposed to improve under Rohit Gupta?

 

Cuts, cuts, cuts

Due to lower enrolment of 5 000 students across the board, Gupta cut 289 teachers and other central staff including 150 teachers from the highest-needs schools throughout the board. He didn’t mention that there are another 792 positions set to be cut from the Board this fall and didn’t explain what was lost through $59.5 million in “supervisor savings.” Also, the Board closed its distribution centre for school supplies now that Paul Calandra has given teachers a card to purchase supplies at the American-owned company Staples. They are already facing price hikes. It also closed 2 outdoor education centres and unprofitable school cafeterias. Gupta downsized the equity department and shuttered the Heritage Month Committees and the Public Engagement Office. No light from this Dark Tower.

The saddest of all cuts must be the gradual elimination of Heydon Park Secondary School and Eastdale CI. Both are havens for young people with severe problems who can’t manage in a regular sized school but thrive in the small settings like these.

 

What happened to local power?

There’s  much more to the story about the Tories’ Bill 101 but here are the basics:

  • TDSB drops from 22 to 12 trustees despite the largest enrolment of students in Canada
  • Pay for trustees limited to $10 000 per year
  • Chief Executive Officer (CEO) replaces the current Director of Education and must have business qualifications. Trustees may hire CEOs but not fire them. Either Rohit Gupta or Paul Calandra hired Camillo Cipriano as the new CEO for the TDSB: no consultation
    • CEO in charge of developing board budgets
  • Chief Education Officer (CEdO), added who has education qualifications
  • Collective bargaining changed by creating a Council of Ontario Directors of Education (CODE) as the central bargaining agent for all English language school boards.
    • CEOs in these boards will ratify central agreements
    • Local agreements will be ratified by the CEO alone
  • Minister approves what learning materials may be used by teachers in the classroom
  • Written exams for students from Grades 9 – 12
  • Student Attendance now worth part of course marks in secondary school

 

This is a monumental threat to local governance, diversity, equity and inclusion across Ontario. It is a threat to the very existence of public education. We need strong trustee advocates now more than ever.