The Ford government is backing down from its threat to abolish school board trustees in Ontario and will, instead, add limits to their spending, cap the largest boards at 12 members and change how the bureaucracy is managed.

The Putting Student Achievement First Act, tabled by Education Minister Paul Calandra on Monday, changes how school boards in Ontario are run — but leaves elected trustees in place at the public, Catholic and French boards.

“Ontario’s education system must remain focused on its core responsibility: student success,” Calandra said in a statement. “In some school boards, that focus has been lost, and students are paying the price.”

Under the new system, trustees will have less power over the finances of the school boards they run.

The role of elected trustees has been a focus for the minister since he took over the education file last year, sidelining them at eight separate boards and musing about how he could remove them altogether.

At one point, Calandra said he could remove all English public board trustees in “one fell swoop” if he chose to.

The changes the government unveiled on Monday leave the existing system relatively untouched.

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Trustees will still be elected, but capped at a maximum of 12 per board, with five the minimum. The change, the government said, would only impact the Toronto District School Board, which currently has 22 elected trustees.

The honorarium for trustees will be limited to $10,000, with closer scrutiny of expenses. It would also ban school boards from paying certain fees for trustees to belong to certain organizations and for costs to attend “non-essential” conferences, and limit trustees’ discretionary expenses.

The proposed changes largely leave the role of trustees at French-language boards alone.

Within the English and Catholic boards, the government is also changing how the bureaucracy operates.

If the legislation is passed, a new chief executive officer would be in charge of financial decisions, while the chief education officer would handle school decisions. The former would require a business qualification, and the latter would need to have some kind of teaching education.

They would replace the director of education, who is the head of the board’s bureaucracy under the current system.

The new CEO would be in charge of drafting and guiding the new budget through, although elected trustees could still request changes. Officials indicated, however, if trustees made changes the CEO did not approve of, he could push back.

If trustees aren’t able to agree on budgets under the proposed changes, the minister of education could intervene to decide.

— with files from The Canadian Press

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

The organization representing Ontario’s school boards says it hasn’t had any communication with the Ford government over the future of elected trustees, as concerns about their potential abolition continue.

The Ontario Public School Board Association said it’s listening closely to public comments made by Premier Doug Ford and his education minister about whether they want to eliminate trustees, without receiving any formal word.

“Nothing official to date,” the organization’s executive director, Stephanie Donaldson, confirmed to Global News.

“Parents are really concerned and I think there’s a lot of confusion out there across the education sector and in homes across Ontario, without knowing where we’re actually going with this. I think people would really love a conversation — and an actual consultation — on this with the folks that are affected, in particular the students.”

On Monday, Ford confirmed the government was still “discussing” whether or not to get rid of trustees, offering no details of what those conversations entailed. Education Minister Paul Calandra has indicated he’s keen to majorly overhaul school boards without yet tabling legislation.

Donaldson said it was important that a decision from the government comes soon, with nominations set to open for school board elections this spring.

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“We’ve got municipal elections coming up in a few short months where people will be electing their mayor, their councillor and their trustees,” she said. “And so I think voters want to know too, that they have some stability in their local democracy as well.”

Calandra has mused about the future of school board trustees for close to a year as he has taken control of some of Ontario’s largest school boards. Both the public and Catholic boards in Toronto and Peel Region are now under the control of a supervisor, as well as Ottawa-Carleton.

The appointment of a supervisor, which has happened at seven boards over the past year, effectively sidelines trustees and puts the education minister in charge.

The most recent group to complain about the move was the Black Trustees’ Caucus, which is part of the Ontario Public School Boards Association.

In a letter to Ford, the group expressed concern that supervision and the sidelining of trustees was hurting representation for marginalized students at some school boards.

“Ontario cannot address systemic anti-Black racism while weakening the governance and equity structures designed to confront it,” Debbie King, chair of the caucus, wrote.

“Sustaining strong oversight during provincial supervision is essential to meeting legal obligations, maintaining public confidence, and improving outcomes for Black students — and for all students.”

A spokesperson for Calandra’s office said inequalities were one of the reasons he had decided to take over some school boards.

“Disparities in our school system highlight the need for governance reform of an outdated system that, for too long, has left too many students behind,” the statement read.

“I am focused on student achievement by rebuilding a system grounded in respect, responsibility, and support.”

Donaldson said she understood why the government was taking its time deciding whether or not it would do away with trustees, but urged Ford to have a more open conversation.

“Talking about a governance reform of this scale across the education sector is a really serious matter. So I respect the fact that there are sober discussions that are happening in government,” she said.

“We’d love to see those discussions actually happen with the public and ourselves outside of government as well.”

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Doug Ford says he is still “discussing” whether or not to get rid of elected trustees in Ontario, signalling a final decision has not yet been made on his government’s overhaul of school boards.

Speculation has percolated about the future of trustees for close to a year as Education Minister Paul Calandra embarks on a mission to reform how school boards operate by taking control of some and musing about the future of trustees.

At the end of January, the government put the Peel District School Board under supervision. It joined Toronto public, Toronto Catholic and Ottawa-Carleton on the list of seven boards where trustees have been sidelined.

Calandra previously told Global News he did not plan to change the role of French language board trustees and would maintain some form of Catholic school board elected official because of representation requirements.

“The public school trustees have no constitutional cover whatsoever,” he said.

It had, at one point, seemed the overhaul of school boards could come during the fall sitting of the legislature, which wrapped without new legislation on the issue. Calandra said in December he was aiming to table his changes in the new year.

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Asked if he wanted to see trustees abolished altogether on Monday, Premier Ford suggested a final decision still hadn’t been made.

“We’re sitting down and discussing that and we’ll see when we move forward,” he said. “But I just want to fix the school boards, there’s a lot of waste of taxpayers’ money and we see it.”

In the latest intervention, Bluewater District School Board wrote to the ombudsman asking him to review any potential abolition of school board trustees.

“The removal of English public boards of trustees would also result in the loss of Indigenous representation where it currently exists,” part of the letter read.

“Additionally, a move by the provincial government to remove English public school trustees would have a detrimental impact on the student voice in the affected boards through the loss of student trustees. This is the sole legislated role giving voice to Ontario students in English public schools.”

Calandra has not laid out his full plan for the future of Ontario’s education system, but has maintained some school boards are poorly run and said he wants to take more direct responsibility for their decisions.

“I have not yet provided advice to cabinet on where I want to go,” Calandra said in December. “But to be clear, there is absolutely nothing to date that has moved me from where I have been for months, that trustees aren’t necessarily the right avenue to deliver education across the province of Ontario.”

Ford suggested Monday the education minister would have an announcement on more funding for teachers to purchase classroom supplies in response to a question about the ombudsman letter on Monday.

“Minister Calandra is going to make an announcement, hopefully sooner than later,” he said, after telling a story about meeting teachers in dollar stores.

“Each principal, I hear, gets $300; when I talk to the teachers, they’re saying they don’t even see it. So, we’re going to make that change, and it’s going to be a very, very positive announcement for front-line educators.”

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.