School boards shape your future
Even if you don’t have children, school trustees are spending your tax dollars. Maybe you should vote for them,
As voters head to the polls Monday, whether they have kids or not, they should remember that school boards and trustees have the power to shape their future and define neighbourhoods Teenagers shoot hoops on new half-courts, near a re-sodded soccer field. Chatty seniors sit on new benches at the sides. And about 150 community members, including elders and toddlers, dance to Tibetan music on a recently paved full basketball court.
They’ve gathered this evening outside Parkdale Collegiate Institute on Jameson Ave., nestled amid highrise rental build- ings in Toronto’s west end. This is more than a school. In this low-income neighbourhood, home to many newcomers and immigrants, it is a community hub.
The school grounds used to be crumbling, rotting and poorly lit. But last year, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) approved an $800,000 enhancement project with input from students, parents and residents. It is an example of what school board trustees do, overseeing big budgets of taxpayer money, and how their decisions impact
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the community. And it underscores the importance for voters, even those without children, to understand the role of trustees as they head to the polls Oct. 22. The reality is that many voters leave that part of the ballot blank. Yet, the demographic diversity of trustees, in some municipalities, makes them a much better representation of the population they serve when compared with other elected officials.
“School boards and trustees do matter,” says Myer Siemiatycki, a politics professor at Ryerson University. “They’re spending your money, they’re shaping your future, they’re defining your neighbourhood … School boards are major-league government — some people think it’s not really government, or if it is, then it’s minorleague.”
Ontario’s 72 school boards are governed by trustees. They are the community’s advocates for public education and help the board fulfil its duties under the Education Act, which include coming up with a multi-year strategic plan, adopting policies to support that vision and approving a balanced budget. In Toronto, the annual operating budget is $3.5 billion for the TDSB and $1.2 billion for the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB).
The board makes decisions that affect school closures, catchment areas, staffing levels and programming. And it makes policy decisions, such as letting organizations use its facilities during evenings and weekends to run initiatives such as youth camps, adult English-language classes and computer classes for seniors.
“It doesn’t matter if you have kids in the system or not,” says Charles Pascal, professor at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. “Education, and improving education, is the key to a healthier, safer, more just and prosperous society for the many, rather than the few.”
Some critics have suggested getting rid of trustees altogether, in light of well-publicized controversies surrounding dysfunctional school boards. In 2016, allegations of racism, misspending and a culture of fear surfaced at the York Region District School Board, prompting the ministry of education to intervene and issue a scathing report that said trustees were unaccountable and lacked a basic understanding of their roles and responsibilities. In 2014, the ministry investigated the TDSB, sending in a troubleshooter who reported on a culture of fear, and ordered trustees to stop interfering in day-today operations. And from 2008 to 2011, the province took control of Toronto’s Catholic board after a damning report uncovered trustee spending abuses, infighting and repeated failures to balance the books.
A complete overhaul of the education system isn’t unheard of. This year, Nova Scotia scrapped seven elected regional school boards in favour of a provincial advisory council appointed by the education minister. Other jurisdictions have adopted alternative models.
Pascal, a former Ontario deputy minister of education, says “what’s really important is that we have well-informed people guiding the system, no matter what model we have.”
“Good governance is going to bring people who are evidencebased, who do their homework and where evidence trumps personal opinion and ideology,” Pascal says.
When boards are “working on all cylinders,” such as the current TDSB, good things happen, he says. But across Ontario, there’s “a lot of mediocre governance in many school boards” because “folks don’t take enough interest in who they elect and why they elect them.”
Given that the Progressive Conservatives have made big curriculum changes, such as rolling back the sex-ed curriculum and adopting a back-to-basics approach with math, Pascal says it’s key that voters pay attention to who is running. Yet, he notes, many people don’t know who their trustee is, or the candidates.
Or, perhaps they don’t care. In the 2014 Toronto municipal elections, in which overall voter turnout was 55 per cent, about 15 per cent of ballots cast didn’t include a vote for trustee — in some wards this was as high as 25 per cent.
“It’s really hard to be an informed voter,” says Siemiatycki, who suspects most people make decisions based on name recognition. “It’s probably the hardest ballot to cast in any of the political arenas.”
There are various reasons for this, he says. People are generally unaware of the role of school boards and trustees. Plus, during an election, the mayoralty candidates garner the most media coverage and define the key issues. And, the job of trustee — this includes meetings with the board, various board committees and community members — is essentially a part-time gig, given that their salaries range between $5,900 and $25,000, depending on the student population of the board.
“It’s a recipe for bewilderment,” Siemiatycki says. “If you wanted to end up with a confusing and virtually impenetrable political system from the vantage point of voters, you couldn’t create anything more likely to achieve that than what we’ve actually got … This is a real drawback for our schools and our democracy.”
The irony, he notes, is that trustees have a long history, dating back to 1807, when they became the first democratically elected representatives in Ontario.
“Here we are 200 years later and they’re pretty much in a twilight zone,” he says. “School trustees are the great unknown.”
That’s evident to trustee Robin Pilkey, running for re-election in TDSB Ward 7, which includes the Swansea, Bloorwest Village and Parkdale neighbourhoods.
“I’ve been knocking on a lot of doors and I come across people who say, ‘I don’t vote for trustee, I don’t have kids.’ And my first response is, ‘You pay taxes that support schools, so even if you don’t have kids, you have a vested interest in them being run successfully.’
“It benefits all of us that the system is managed well to ensure that when kids graduate they have skills they’ll need for jobs, and the skills they need to go on to higher education,” says Pilkey, chair of the TDSB, a po- sition she has held since being acclaimed in 2015. “Even if you don’t have kids in the school, you may be using our property for something. In many areas of the city it’s the only green space … and we’re very committed to making sure that it is open to the community.”
It’s a commitment shared by trustee Jo-Ann Davis of TCDSB Ward 9, who isn’t up for re-election. In her ward — it stretches from Little Italy in the west to Regent Park in the east — four schools, at 50-per-cent capacity, were consolidated into two, which meant closing St. Bruno Catholic School and Senhor Santo Cristo last year. She worked with the community to ensure the two shuttered schools remained a public asset and weren’t sold off to developers.
“We’re creating community hubs out of them,” Davis says. “If you have a trustee who doesn’t work the extra mile to make that happen, then you can see development occur, rather than holding onto green space and public space.”
The St. Bruno site will likely house a public library and environmental groups. The other building is leased by University of Toronto Schools, while its facility undergoes construction, but when the lease is up, the board will look for other community partners.
Trustees “are there, really, as a lobbyist and an advocate for students, parents and commu- nities around the board table and the ministry table,” says Davis.
Amid concerns the province may make cuts that affect school boards, having a strong trustee is crucial, says Siemiatycki.
“It is more important than ever to have counter-voices,” he says. “The delegated role of trustees, first and foremost, is to be champions of public education. So this is probably a good time to ensure that we elect trustees who can fulfil that part of their mandate.”
In Toronto, people vote for a trustee from one of four school boards — English-language public and Catholic, and French-language public and Catholic — based on the board they support through their property taxes. There’s no shortage of candidates to choose from, with about 225 men and women of various ethnicities.
Siemiatycki says women and visible minorities are better represented on school boards than city council. For instance, in Toronto, 51 per cent of residents are non-white, according to the 2016 Census. Similarly about half the TDSB trustees are not white, compared with about 10 per cent of councillors. In Mississauga and Brampton, 57 and 73 per cent of residents are non-white. About half the trustees on the Peel District School Board are non-white, but by comparison everyone on Mississauga council is white and there’s just one person on Brampton council who isn’t white.
“The flame of democracy, ironically, is being carried by school boards and school trustees who are far more reflective of the general population than their city council counterparts,” Siemiatycki says. “The closer the faces and experiences of those elected to office come to reflecting the broader population … the more democratic, the more open, the more inclusive our political system is.”
He and two colleagues are doing research, in part, into the demographics of all trustee candidates running in the province to see if they reflect their communities.
Back at Parkdale Collegiate, resident Oneil Barnes, 29, plays basketball two evenings a week. He says the area still has challenges, with occasional drug deals taking place courtside. But things have improved.
“The fact that all these kids are here is good because they weren’t here before,” he says, while dribbling a basketball. “There was no togetherness.”
The Tibetan Women’s Association of Ontario hosts the weekly Lhakar gatherings and was given a permit to use the space for free because it’s a notfor-profit and in a priority neighbourhood. That allows it to run programs that combat social isolation and encourage community engagement, says executive member Rinchen Dolma. Parent Cheryl Bouzide-McKee, whose two sons attend the school, spearheaded the project three years ago.
“We wouldn’t have gotten to where we are without a trustee (Pilkey) who could see the importance of community space,” says Bouzide-McKee, chair of the grounds enhancement committee.
Even she, a political junkie, didn’t know what trustees did before getting involved with the project. She’s never even voted for one, choosing to leave it blank on the ballot. Not anymore. On Monday, she will vote for a school trustee.
“It’s the first time I’ve understood what impact they can have.”
“The delegated role of trustees, first and foremost, is to be champions of public education.”
JO-ANN DAVIS
TCDSB TRUSTEE