As a new school year starts, Ottawa’s largest public school board finds itself in detention for financial reasons.But some suggest the recent provincial takeover of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) was politically motivated — and worry about Premier Doug Ford’s plans for elected trustees province-wide.It’s not clear how long the province’s appointee Bob Plamondon will be in charge of the board. He’s not currently doing media interviews.Plamondon has so far reinstated exams or summative assessments for grades 9 and 10. He confirmed to CBC News by email that no changes to special education are planned, but it’s an area he’s looking at. In the meantime, elected trustees have no access to their email accounts or cell phones and say they’re not getting their $16,436 annual honorarium. September usually brings to light many specific problems to solve for families, and trustees worry about not being able to advocate for them. But a larger debate looms about education in Ontario. Unlike two decades ago, the Ford government has a fresh, strong majority mandate.Education Minister Paul Calandra is talking about centralizing education in the ministry; he even told CBC News he might eliminate school trustees before the next elections in 2026. That suggestion has alarmed critics warning such a move would be undemocratic. They say the government doesn’t fund schools properly and is to blame for deficits saddling school boards.Ontario’s education minister tells CBC News he would consider eliminating school board trustees in the province In an interview with CBC’s Kate Porter at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in Ottawa, Paul Calandra said the way schools are governed in the province is “outdated” and “old.” He says if the province determines they can deliver a better product without trustees, they will.Firm found no reckless or deliberate wrongdoing at boardPlamondon is well known in Ottawa. He’s a consultant, economist, accountant and sits on several boards. He ran federally for the Progressive Conservatives in Ottawa Centre way back in 1988, was a board member on the National Capital Commission, and helped on Mark Sutcliffe’s mayoral campaign. It’s not clear how long Plamondon will be in charge. This summer, he’s been meeting with board staff, principals, unions and at least a couple of trustees. He’s also begun sorting out a complicated financial picture.Bob Plamondon, the provincial appointee tapped to oversee the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, is seen here at Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s campaign launch in 2022. (Joanne Chianello/CBC)The OCDSB was already under scrutiny after it drained its reserves during the pandemic and posted deficit after deficit. Trustees managed to balance the $1.24 billion budget for this school year by making $18 million in cuts, but the Education Act allows the government to take control if a board is on track to keep accumulating a deficit.So, the OCDSB finds itself in the same class as the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board, the Thames Valley District School Board and Toronto’s public and Catholic boards. All have supervisors ordered by Calandra to “fix the mismanagement and refocus resources where they belong: in the classroom.”The word “mismanagement” might linger over the OCDSB like a dark cloud as school resumes, but it was not what Pricewaterhouse Coopers found after its financial investigation.”We did not find any examples of reckless or deliberate wrongdoing, lack of financial oversight or governance or actions resulting in potential reputational damage,” the firm concluded.Instead, the top financial pressure was the $20 million the OCDSB says it spends to heat, clean and cool under-capacity schools. The province, after all, has had a moratorium on closing schools since 2017.Then there are the salary increases and backpay boards had to roll out after the Ontario government’s Bill 124 was deemed unconstitutional. CBC News asked the minister’s office why Calandra emphasizes mismanagement when reports suggest financial problems are not of the boards’ making, but received no reply.Third-party investigations might not even happen in the future. The government’s Bill 33 proposes giving the education minister powers to take over a board so long as he “has concerns about a matter of public interest” and without an outside investigation.Board was ‘a hot mess’: ministerWhat certainly caught Calandra’s attention about the OCDSB was the flood of complaints his office received from parents when he took over in March.It was a heated time. Senior board staff had unveiled new school boundaries that would have sent students to schools further from home and split up siblings. Many of the changes were later walked back.Calandra also took note of resignations. Trustees Nili Kaplan-Myrth and Justine Bell left in June, citing a toxic environment.”When we took it over, that board was really a hot mess,” Paul Calandra told CBC News in August. “They couldn’t get along with each other. They were resigning. Parents were just infuriated.”Headlines about the OCDSB don’t raise eyebrows like other examples Calandra tends to highlight. Trustees from Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board, for instance, took a trip to Italy to buy religious art, while staff from the Thames Valley District School Board went on a retreat at an expensive hotel inside the stadium where the Toronto Blue Jays play.Still, Donna Blackburn, a trustee elected four times in Barrhaven since 2010, isn’t surprised the OCDSB was taken over. She says it should have happened a year earlier and thinks the minister’s decision was more about politics than finances.”We have been a dysfunctional board. Under the Education Act you can’t take a board over because it’s ‘dysfunctional,’ so you have to use the excuse of finances,” she suggests.Trustees on the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board take a vote in May 2025 to approve an overhaul of its elementary school programs. (Kate Porter/CBC)Blackburn is a fiscal conservative, and not one to mince words. She accuses some fellow trustees of dragging debates late into the evening or criticizing board staff. She says the OCDSB drew attention when it tried to mandate masks early in the term. (Blackburn has herself sometimes been part of headlines about code of conduct violations.)Some unpopular decisions, such as phasing out the alternative program, should have been made years ago, Blackburn argues. She also thinks boards should have a positive relationship with police officers — the Ford government now plans to reinstate them in boards like the OCDSB that removed them. Lyra Evans, elected as trustee in Rideau-Vanier, agrees that “there was certainly some board dysfunction.”But she points to the high stress of making austerity decisions that upset parents, along with online vitriol.Underfunding the real problem: trusteesEvans and Blackburn often disagree, but both are adamant about one thing. “We are woefully underfunded, particularly when it comes to special education,” says Blackburn. “That has to be addressed. End of story.”School boards have no choice but to meet legal obligations to students and bear the costs, Evans adds. She believes the province doesn’t want to hear from trustees — especially ones in big cities — loudly calling for more money.”Were we taken over for being good advocates for our communities? Was it a political takeover, not a financial takeover?” Evans asks.The provincial government says it spends historically high amounts on education in Ontario, but many say that funding hasn’t kept up with inflation. Opposition parties, unions and boards describe an education system where teachers can’t afford school supplies, children with behavioural or other special needs go without help, and teachers take sick leave for burnout.Dozens of boards across Ontario are battling deficits. Of the 72 school boards in Ontario, the handful put under supervision are among the biggest.The year to comeStephen Skoutajan of the Ottawa-Carleton Elementary Teachers Federation is worried that both serious funding challenges and kids’ needs will get lost in a distracting political narrative about a trustee trip to Italy for art.Like Blackburn, Skoutajan has met with Plamondon and isn’t anticipating imminent local cuts.But he fears the loss of public consultation that comes with 12 democratically elected trustees, instead getting quick decisions by one political appointee. Skoutajan is also preoccupied with Calandra’s suggestion that trustees might be eliminated, which the union leader calls “authoritarianism cloaked in the language of accountability”. It’s unclear what, if any, open meetings will take place where people can see decisions made about Ottawa’s English public schools. The education minister’s press secretary says Plamondon will be posting his decisions regularly online. Ontario TodayDo we still need elected school boards?As Ontario’s Minister of Education talks about reviewing the future of school board trustees, we hear your reaction with Sachin Maharaj, an Assistant Professor in the University of Ottawa’s faculty of education. This isn’t the first takeover of its kind.Twenty-three years ago, the Progressive Conservatives appointed a supervisor to get the OCDSB’s finances under control. That chapter, which included cuts to special education, ended when Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals won the Ontario election in the fall of 2003 and supervisors resigned from three boards.Evans says trustees already made tough cuts and Plamondon could simply dispose of three vacant schools and two parcels of land to find extra money.”The supervisor could very well get to a balanced budget doing nothing differently than the board of trustees had proposed,” says Evans. Blackburn calls Plamondon a seasoned auditor and a man of integrity, and hopes he determines for himself that the provincial funding formula leaves Ottawa short.”Hopefully he will have the courage and the leadership to tell the minister, conservative to conservative, ‘Mr. Minister, they are woefully underfunded, particularly in special education,'” Blackburn says.As for Calandra, he’s said he’s open to hearing such a message from his supervisor appointees.But he’s also promised to “report back very soon” on his review into how school boards are governed in Ontario — and there’s a possibility he will overhaul the education system before trustees get to take their seats again.
Ottawa’s biggest school board is under ministry control. What happens now?
