School boards have 2 weeks to toe the line

Told to have trustees align with new wards or have plan imposed

The province has given Toronto school boards two weeks to align their wards with the 25 the Ford government has imposed on the city — meaning some trustees could end up overseeing many more schools than others.

The tricky task has left the boards scrambling to figure out how best to assign the 22 Toronto public board trustees and the Toronto Catholic’s 12 to the new wards when they are not allowed to alter any boundaries. Currently, the trustees are responsible for 44 wards, all of which are much smaller than the new wards.

The likely scenario is that 19 public board trustees will end up with one ward while three will oversee two, increasing their current workload.

“This could end up with a trustee having what was four or five city wards in the past. It’s not great,” said Robin Pilkey, chair of the Toronto District School Board, the country’s largest.

“What it means for parents is trustees will do the best they can with what they have,” said Pilkey. “But just like the city, there will be more people” to serve.

The move — a part of Premier Doug Ford’s plan to cut the number of city councillors from 47 to 25 — comes during the summer months when board staff are on vacation, and after they already conducted extensive consultations to make changes earlier this year to match the city’s initial plan to increase the number of wards from the current 44, to 47.

“Representation from trustees to parents is really crucial — and we got forgotten” in the government’s rush, said Toronto Catholic board Trustee Maria Rizzo.

Boards also found out Monday that it will be a week before they are given electoral information on the new 25 wards — essentially leaving them a week to make decisions. The information is needed to understand how many public and Catholic voters will be in the new wards.

The Toronto District School Board has already warned parents on its website that there is no time to consult community members.

Rizzo said the Catholic board is “in the middle of the (summer) shut-down now ... Obviously, this is the beginning of chaos when rules are broken and process and people are dis- respected.

“In attempt to ‘get’ city councillors, school trustees representing the same constituencies from all four boards are caught in the crossfire,” she said of accusations that Ford, a former city councillor, is targeting Toronto.

The local French public and Catholic boards are also impacted — and complicating matters is that their boundaries extend well beyond the city.

Ben Menka, a spokesperson for Education Minister Lisa Thompson, said “in forming geographic areas, school boards can combine, but not split municipal wards. Boards can combine municipal wards that are not adjacent to each other.”

Both the public and Catholic boards are holding special meetings next week to talk about the changes. The province has said if boards haven’t submitted plans by Aug. 14, it will impose new boundaries by Aug. 17.

Former Toronto public board trustee Marit Stiles, now the NDP MPP representing Davenport, said “knowing what school boards are facing right now as they are getting ready to bring students back to school in a month — to be landing this on them in a vastly undemocratic way, I think it’s really unfair.”

Liberal MPP Mitzie Hunter, a former education minister, said “the government has acted overnight for their own reasons, and they have not thought it through.”