Remember the Catholic school board that spent 190K on a trip for board members to Italy? They bought a bunch of Vatican art for their schools, had some fancy lunches, etc. on our dime. Another board spent 40K on themselves for a “staff retreat” to the Sky Dome. This story’s about the province “stepping in.”
Boards in question are:
Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board - the Italy trip
& Thames Valley District School Board in London - sky dome visit
They’ve appointed a supervisor for Thames Valley (the “takes control” part of the headline), and simply asked Norfolk to pay back most of the money afaik. Here’s the bit that I think bears watching:
The province is also launching investigations at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board and the Toronto District School Board over ongoing financial deficits and spending concerns.
Calandra said all three have failed to address ongoing, years-long deficits with no plan to return the books to the black.
“Not to sound like a big tough guy, but to be very clear, the resources that we provide, we’re providing record level of funding. We expect that to be made available to teachers so that they can give our students the ultimate ability to succeed.”
[…] The province is leaving the door open to taking control of all three boards, depending on what the probes reveal.
This is a complex issue. Cherrypicking known incidents of misspending by select school boards and letting Ford’s MoE talk out of his ass does not do it justice. “we’re providing record level of funding” - yeah, right. How on brand for the Ford government /s. Show me per capita spending historically in Ontario and across provinces if you want to claim “record level” that isn’t pure BS. This announcement is groundwork for Conservatives to slash and privatize public services.
Evidence of the province’s role in creating financial issues for School Boards (https://www.torontotoday.ca/local/education/province-appoints-toronto-school-boards-financial-investigators-10561288):
The TDSB has blamed its shortfall on the provincial government not fully covering the costs associated with employing teachers, as well as Queen’s Park’s moratorium on school closures.
The board wants to consolidate underutilized and under-enrolled schools as part of a wider plan to modernize its capital holdings and programming.
The province has denied this request, as well as requests to subsidize the cost of keeping the under-used schools open, and continues to uphold the moratorium that was first established in 2017.
