"As Ontario's education minister mulls eliminating the role of school board trustees provincewide, groups representing Ontario educators and students say the province is taking over boards to distract from its own chronic underfunding of public education. Members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF), Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO), and the Ontario Student Trustees' Association, along with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, hosted a news conference at Queen's Park Tuesday to decry provincial takeovers of seven school boards over the past year."
""Supervision doesn't address chronic underfunding, it does not solve staffing shortages, it does not reduce class sizes," said OSSTF president Martha Hradowy. "What it does is it distracts from the day-to-day realities that students, education workers and teachers are living through in classrooms," she said. ETFO president David Mastin said the province has underfunded public education by $6.3 billion since 2018, citing a 2025 report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives."
Educator and student organizations, including OSSTF, ETFO, the Ontario Student Trustees' Association, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, held a news conference at Queen's Park to oppose provincial supervision of school boards. The province has placed seven boards under supervision in the past year and has put all 72 boards on notice to direct funds to classrooms. Groups argue supervision does not address chronic underfunding, staffing shortages, or large class sizes and diverts attention from classroom realities. A 2025 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report estimates $6.3 billion in underfunding since 2018. Education Minister Paul Calandra has signalled openness to eliminating trustees in 2026.
Read at www.cbc.ca
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