{"id":134895,"date":"2025-09-10T23:49:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/134895\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T23:49:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:49:20","slug":"ford-government-wont-eliminate-french-catholic-trustees-but-english-board-has-no-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/134895\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford government won\u2019t eliminate French, Catholic trustees but English board has no cover"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trustees at Ontario\u2019s 31 English public school boards have \u201cno constitutional cover whatsoever\u201d to stop the Ford government<\/a> from firing them, Education Minister Paul Calandra says, as he gears up for a historical overhaul of the education system.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In a sit-down interview with Global News, Calandra outlined the government\u2019s wide-ranging positions on the future of school boards, trustees and his desire to standardize the curriculum across the province.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to deliver a more consistent level of education across the province of Ontario and maximize resources back into the classroom for teachers, Calandra said. \u201cAnd come hell or high water, we\u2019re gonna do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calandra indicated that while the government is not looking at eliminating or consolidating any of the province\u2019s 72 school boards, he is open to overhauling hundreds of trustee positions, and blames them for creating a \u201cpolarized political cesspool\u201d environment of \u201canger and frustration.\u201d<\/p>\n

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While the minister said the restructuring isn\u2019t exclusively about saving money, he also said he is open to \u201cfixing the funding formula\u201d to ensure teachers have enough resources to meet the growing class needs.<\/p>\n

The province\u2019s moves are being met with growing pushback from parents, trustees, and opposition politicians alike, who are suspicious of the government\u2019s motives.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many parents who rely on their locally elected representatives \u2014 which are school board trustees \u2014 who rely on them to set their kids up for the new school year, have no one to turn to,\u201d NDP Leader Marit Stiles said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMinister Calandra is shutting out parents and families from local school decisions that will impact their communities and their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tSchool boards won\u2019t merge\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Calandra was quick to promise all 72 separate school boards across the English, Catholic and French systems would remain in place. Rumours of collapsing the boards into just four institutions, he said, are categorically untrue.<\/p>\n

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In fact, Calandra praised the French and Catholic boards for outperforming their English counterparts in terms of standardized testing. He said he wanted to avoid the headaches that eliminating them could cause.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI have no interest in opening up constitutional battles over education,\u201d Calandra explained. \u201cI like a form of competition within the system; I think it\u2019s healthy that parents do have a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collapsing all boards into four might save money, Calandra said, but he suggested the savings would be lower than people expected. Despite hammering trustees for individual trips and expenses, the education minister said his reforms aren\u2019t necessarily about saving money.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s really focused \u2014 and maybe that\u2019s my fault \u2014 on saving, savings, savings, but as I\u2019ve said to the supervisors, you go in there and you tell me if my funding formula isn\u2019t good enough, then we\u2019ll fix the funding formula,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Instead, he\u2019s taking aim at the politics of trustees, which he believes has \u201cbecome a polarized political cesspool of anger and frustration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tFrench and Catholic trustees have some protection\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Canadian constitution, which enshrines linguistic and religious rights across the country, offers certain trustees protection from the government\u2019s most aggressive reforms.<\/p>\n

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Trustees at French language boards will remain in their roles untouched by reforms, Calandra said, stressing the potential legal battles changing their protected roles could spark.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe French language rights \u2014 guaranteed to have their own representation, guaranteed to have elected trustees,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt\u2019s a constitutional right that we have no desire to infringe on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Catholic students are entitled to religious representation, which is also protected. The broader mandate of Catholic trustees to manage larger parts of the board, however, could be reigned in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Catholic system also has a similar guarantee,\u201d Calandra said. \u201cCatholics have the right to be educated in a Catholic school, denominational issues are to be dealt with by elected trustees. That is a constitutional right that we have no intention of infringing on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Education \u201cwill look at removing\u201d other powers Catholic trustees have \u201cso that they can focus solely on denominational issues,\u201d Calandra said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rest of the decision-making would be out of their hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tEnglish board trustees under threat\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The constitutional protection enjoyed by French and Catholic trustees, however, doesn\u2019t extend to the English public system, which Calandra now has squarely in his sights.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe public school trustees have no constitutional cover whatsoever,\u201d the education minister told Global News. \u201cThey could very well be eliminated by the end of the year, absolutely \u2026 I\u2019ve made no final decision on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Firing all English trustees, critics have said, would leave parents without democratically elected advocates in school boards. The Ontario NDP called trustees a \u201clifeline\u201d parents rely on to advocate for reform and assist with students.<\/p>\n

Calandra said local MPPs would be able to assist, along with parent representatives at the school level.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey can continue to do that through their provincial members of parliament,\u201d he suggested. \u201cThey can continue to have roles through parent councils, which I see becoming even more important in a system if it\u2019s changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The planned reforms, which Calandra said he hopes to unveil before the end of the year, would centralize and standardize large parts of the system at Queen\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve asked my department for a full review of curriculum,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe curriculum \u2014 that should be standardized. We\u2019ve done some standardized testing obviously through EQAO, but I think there are other parts of delivering the education and what kids are learning that can be standardized and developed by the province and disseminated across all 72 boards.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trustees at Ontario\u2019s 31 English public school boards have \u201cno constitutional cover whatsoever\u201d to stop the Ford government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,549,13403,43,44,44643,13404,714,41,39,42,40,73381],"class_list":["post-134895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-canada","tag-education","tag-ford-government","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-ontario-education","tag-ontario-politics","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-toronto-district-school-board"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}