Only one of three Jewish trustees at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is running for re-election this year for a seat on a board that has been embroiled in heated meetings about antisemitism and is currently in the midst of a provincial takeover.<\/p>\n
Shelley Laskin and Alexandra Lulka Rotman have decided not to run again. The only Jewish trustee seeking re-election is Stacey Cline, a TDSB elementary school and English second language teacher for 10 years, who was elected in Don Valley West in a March 2025 byelection.<\/p>\n
The Oct. 26 election comes more than a year into the Ontario government\u2019s takeover of the TDSB and three other school boards to address what the province has cited as financial mismanagement.<\/p>\n
Cline is running in a reconfigured ward that covers York South-Weston and Eglinton-Lawrence. In April 2026, the province merged the TDSB\u2019s 22 wards, reducing them to 12 to comply with a new trustee cap under Bill 101<\/a>, which received royal assent in May.<\/p>\n Laskin and Lulka Rotman reflect on a combined three decades as trustees<\/p>\n Laskin was a TDSB trustee for six terms from 1997 to 2003 and from 2014 to 2026. She decided to run for trustee in the late 1990s when her son\u2019s school randomly selected him to switch from a morning kindergarten class to one in the afternoon. She says the decision confused her because the school didn\u2019t initially ask parents if they wanted to voluntarily move their children.<\/p>\n The TDSB trustee in Laskin\u2019s ward encouraged her to contact the school\u2019s council chair for help. Laskin eventually found out that under the Education Act, principals had the right to place children in classrooms at their discretion.<\/p>\n Her next best option was to make the process of these random switches smoother for parents in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough the school chair who was very empathetic to the plight of parents whose kids were just switched, we created a little kindergarten committee and rewrote all the communications,\u201d she says. \u201cNow, communication is very standard about \u2018reorganization day.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In the roughly two decades Laskin worked as a TDSB trustee, she consistently championed equity projects. These included restoring funds for post-secondary students who rely on the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP), improving staff responses to incidents of racism and hate, and offering courses on Indigenous languages and texts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe goal is that every child who walks into their school can see themselves reflected either within the curriculum or on the walls of the school,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Her community building work was also a highlight of her career. She supported several motions that would allow local organizations to run programs and events on school property, facilitated the rebuilding and redevelopment of several schools, and urged the province to reinstate grants that help involve parents in student life.<\/p>\n Lulka Rotman has been a trustee since 2016. She already had political and educational experience ahead of her election: she advocated for Israel through Hillel and the Canadian Federation of Jewish Students as a Queen\u2019s University student, and she volunteered to help with Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee campaigns.<\/p>\n She eventually moved on to teacher\u2019s college and earned two Montessori degrees. At a friend\u2019s suggestion, Lulka Rotman ran for trustee in a 2016 byelection to combine her passions in both education and politics.<\/p>\n \u201cI, at the time, had no idea what a trustee was. I\u2019d never heard of it,\u201d she says, adding that once she realized what the job entailed, \u201cthe idea kind of took root.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of Lulka Rotman\u2019s biggest accomplishments involved helping the TDSB\u2019s Jewish community. Through the Jewish Heritage Committee, created in 2015 to celebrate Jewish culture and improve Jewish education at the TDSB, she facilitated programming for various Toronto schools.<\/p>\n For one of these programs in May 2017, Toronto schools visited an Anne Frank exhibition<\/a> at the John Polanyi Collegiate Institute.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was really cool to see these Polanyi students, most of whom were not Jewish, some of whom had never heard of the Holocaust, that were now giving tours of this Anne Frank exhibit to their peers from across the city,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Lulka Rotman faced public backlash for calling out antisemitism<\/a> at the TDSB. In spring 2021, when a TDSB employee emailed teaching materials that described Hamas suicide bombings \u201cmartyrdom operations\u201d to educators, Lulka Rotman criticized the emails publicly on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.<\/p>\n An independent investigation<\/a> commissioned by the TDSB\u2019s equity office found that some of the material was antisemitic. It also found that Lulka Rotman\u2019s response was discriminatory.<\/p>\n Lulka Rotman \u201cis no more an Islamophobe than the staff person is antisemitic,\u201d the investigation said. \u201cHowever, given the weight of her office, responding to the outrage of her constituents required her to measure her statements in a careful way to not feed into Islamophobic tropes.\u201d<\/p>\n The TDSB voted against a motion to censure Lulka Rotman in December 2021, but the school board\u2019s response, and the publicity around the investigation, had a lasting impact.<\/p>\n By weathering this incident, Lulka Rotman says she brought more attention to the issue of antisemitism at the TDSB.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like what I was doing really mattered to a lot of people, to take a stand and to be a voice,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n She took just as much pride in the \u201cquieter things\u201d she did as trustee, such as taking phone calls from concerned parents and giving them advice.<\/p>\n When one of the schools in her area was looking to transfer principals, she knew the chosen candidate wouldn\u2019t be a good fit because they had publicly supported the TDSB employee\u2019s teaching materials in 2021. Trustees don\u2019t have control over where principals are assigned, she says, but she advocated for the community by speaking with the superintendent. They were able to \u201cmake the switch before anybody found out.\u201d<\/p>\n Laskin worked equally hard to strengthen the Jewish community at the TDSB. Around half a year after 9\/11, she seconded a motion to distance the school board from a union newsletter about contemporary history in the Middle East, including Israel, that Jewish advocacy groups called propaganda.<\/p>\n A motion she introduced in 2020 to make genocide education mandatory was unanimously carried by the board. She says TDSB curriculum now covers genocide, though staff still aren\u2019t required to receive training on how best to deliver those lessons.<\/p>\n \u201cDifferent teachers cover it differently based upon their expertise,\u201d Laskin says. \u201cThere should be professional learning for teachers that predates its implementation so that staff are comfortable in teaching these materials\u2014they are supported in teaching these materials. That\u2019s still, for me, a missing link.\u201d<\/p>\n Fighting antisemitism at Toronto schools<\/p>\n The investigation into Lulka Rotman\u2019s 2021 comments wasn\u2019t the only time she or Laskin publicly fought antisemitism at the TDSB.<\/p>\n Lulka Rotman says she was advised not to talk about the 2021 investigation. Because she felt \u201cintimidated by the whole integrity commissioner process,\u201d she kept quiet until right before the censure vote.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that I had to bear it alone, from May to November, that was the hardest part. Feeling like I was suffering in silence, feeling like I had to carry this huge weight on my shoulders,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n In February 2025, Laskin supported a report about antisemitism<\/a> written in consultation with Toronto\u2019s Jewish community members and advocacy organizations. It contained 32 recommendations about updating the curriculum to include education about Judaism beyond the Holocaust, improving Jewish representation among staff, and treating anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism.<\/p>\n During a TDSB meeting, many speakers opposed the report, rejecting the recognition of anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism, and saying it could stifle free speech about Palestine. One speaker described Israel as a \u201cvile, depraved, white supremacist state.\u201d \u00a0Laskin called those comments forms of antisemitism.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was true harm spoken tonight,\u201d Laskin said in the meeting. \u201cThis is not acceptable. No form of hate within deputations is acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n The board accepted the report, but Laskin and Lulka Rotman received formal complaints for their comments in the meeting. One complainant<\/a> told the TDSB that Laskin broke several of the board\u2019s rules in the code of conduct.<\/p>\n \u201cThis incident points to a clear bias and even hatred for Palestinians and Jewish folks who oppose a Jewish supremacist nation state,\u201d the complainant said of Laskin.<\/p>\n Investigations by the TDSB\u2019s integrity commissioner\u2014who in January 2025 was given sole discretion over decisions in their investigations\u2014found that neither trustee violated the code of conduct.<\/p>\n Given her previous experience with TDSB investigations, Lulka Rotman wasn\u2019t as worried about the 2025 incident because she knew the Jewish community would support her.<\/p>\n \u201cThe second time around, it was kind of like, \u2018I just don\u2019t care what you think of me. I stand by it,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cIt would say more about the ill health of the board than it would say about me and who I am if they had censured me for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n The last motion Laskin supported encouraged the TDSB to appoint a full-time staff member to combat antisemitism. This staff member would provide training on Jewish topics and connect with community members to make schools more inclusive for Jewish students.<\/p>\n The motion was seconded by Cline and carried by the board, but the provincial takeover paused the initiative.<\/p>\n Provincial takeover, ward changes and passing the torch<\/p>\n The current takeover is the second Laskin has experienced in her six-term career. The last one took place in 2002, with the provincial government citing budgetary errors, lasted longer than a year, and involved two other boards beyond the TDSB.<\/p>\n Laskin says she was \u201ca bit demoralized\u201d during that takeover, though trustees retained advisory roles, held meetings, and continued to advocate for the community. Once her second term ended in 2003, she chose not to run for trustee again until 2014.<\/p>\n