Trustee says they were ‘fully cut off’ from information on Ford government takeover
A trustee at Ontario’s second-largest school board says she and her colleagues were “fully cut off” from information about the provincial takeover, expressing concerns about how programming decisions will impact special needs students.
On Thursday, the Ford government confirmed that the Peel District and York Catholic school boards would be under provincial supervision, a move that has sidelined elected trustees and replaced them with a provincial appointee.
“I had a phone call saying, heads up, there is going to be some official news coming, but we’re not getting the board back,” said Jill Promoli, who was elected as the trustee for wards 6 and 11. “But we learned more from press releases than we did from the minister.”
The takeover is one that the government signalled was coming more than a month ago.
At the end of January, Education Minister Paul Calandra took control of the Peel District School Board, appointing himself as temporary supervisor, claiming that the board was about to lay off 60 classroom teachers, which required immediate provincial intervention.
While trustees were given two weeks to respond to the minister’s concerns, Promoli said there was no direct communication with Calandra.
“We have been fully cut off since this announcement came on Jan. 28,” Promoli said. “Those of us who are the elected trustees, we have continued to speak with each other, but it seems like it’s just been silence, just radio silence for all of this time.”
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In early February, the board responded to the minister’s concerns with a plan to address the “financial impacts of declining enrolment” with a promise that the board “will not face an in-year deficit again.”
“We have taken clear and decisive steps to balance the 2025-26 operating budget without any impact on classroom teachers or education assistants,” the board said in a 10-page report to the minister.
“Then we heard nothing,” Promoli said. “It was just crickets.”
As the deadline came and went, trustees began to grow concerned about the province’s plans.
“After not being able to justify the supervision based on that report, they then spent several weeks trying to find other reasons to have justification for having taken us over earlier,” Promoli said.
The justification came on Thursday.
Heather Watt, a management consultant who once served as former health minister Christine Elliott’s chief of staff, was appointed to take over the day-to-day running of Peel public. Carrie Kormos, with a background in consulting and casinos, will take over York Catholic.
Calandra said the moves came as a result of concerns about long-term financial sustainability and “infighting” among trustees.
“After careful review, it is clear that both Peel and York Catholic are facing serious challenges that they cannot resolve on their own,” he wrote in a statement.
“I have appointed supervisors to restore sound management, strengthen oversight and ensure every decision is focused on protecting student learning and success.”
Promoli, whose trustee profile has been scrubbed from the PDSB website, expressed concern that the supervisors, who don’t have a background in education, will be ill-suited to decision-making that could impact special needs students.
“Everyone’s just really sad,” Promoli said. “We’re there because we really care about the kids in our system.”
“Many of us are parents or grandparents of students in our board. We have former educators at the table. We’re just people who really love public education and want to make sure the system is working best for our kids.”
The move is part of a string of school board takeovers that began last year.
Both the public and Catholic boards in Toronto are under the direct control of Queen’s Park. So are the two boards in Peel Region.
Ottawa-Carleton, Thames Valley and Near North district school boards are the other three boards with supervisors.
Ontario has a total of 72 school boards.
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