Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra has openly said he is considering eliminating the elected school board trustees at many of the province’s 72 school boards. Citing mismanagement and personal agendas, Calandra is using financial issues at many of the school boards as justification for assuming control. This spring, the Ministry took over five boards including some of the largest in the province, due to alleged mismanagement and structural budget deficits. Calandra blames trustees, but the issue is more nuanced. He is using this ‘crisis’ as a smokescreen to avoid addressing the real issues in Ontario’s education system – funding classroom resources.
Since board amalgamations more than 25 years ago, school board trustees have seen their elected power erode. Trustees no longer have the power of taxation, while bloated board administrations largely run the show, with trustees a rubber stamp for decisions. Where trustees still have some semblance of their former duties comes from their ability to advocate for parents when there are issues – a role that many still take to heart. Calandra has pointed to areas of mismanagement by trustees, and a few bad apples have given him a pretext for his Sisyphean task. Four trustees at the Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board took a nearly $190,000 European trip to buy art for new schools. Boards in London, Toronto, and Ottawa saw trustees sidelined and supervisors appointed by Calandra citing alleged financial mismanagement including structural deficits.
While trips to Europe are an appalling misuse of public funds, much of the alleged financial mismanagement is the result of a gross under funding of students. The Ford Government has increased capital spending on new and expanded schools, funding for students at those over 4,800 schools remains stagnant – not even keeping pace with inflation. Ontario’s per-student funding ($13,852) is below the national average ($17,119), while overall education spending has never been higher. There is a disconnect, but not where Calandra is placing blame. Former education minister John Snobelen was quoted in 1995 that a “useful crisis” had to be created in his ministry in order to make substantial changes – 30 years later Calandra is using the same tactics.
The trustee role should indeed be reformed, either through returning taxation power locally to school boards, or by adjusting the trustee role to that of family advocates. In no way should a democratically-elected institution be eliminated by the provincial government.
Calandra’s invented accountability crisis is a Sisyphean task. Until he and his government get serious about properly funding student classroom resources, he will continue to spin his wheels at the detriment of the more than two million of Ontario’s students.
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