Sharpen your pencils and buckle up your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Students are headed back to school this week, and there are a lot of unknowns. Let’s dive in, starting with the big question.
What’s the status of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s controversial elementary boundary review?
That has not been made public.
The elementary program review at Ottawa’s biggest school board, launched last fall, was aimed at
returning as many students as possible to neighbourhood schools
to ensure all elementary schools remained viable. But it quickly became a flashpoint over
school boundary changes
.
Decisions were originally to be made last fall, but the plan was not ratified until this May. Trustees voted in favour of a
“grandparenting” plan
that would allow exemptions for anyone who was eligible — as long as there are spaces available. How the process would work was to be decided this fall, with boundary changes to start rolling out in September 2026.
But on June 27, the province announced the OCDSB was o
ne of five school boards to be put under provincial supervision
. It means the board is under the direction of the supervisor appointed by the province, Robert “Bob” Plamondon, and decisions are no longer being made by trustees.
Plamondon, a finance and public policy expert who is a member of the province’s internal audit committee, among other roles, has been tight-lipped about the next steps. He has not given any interviews and has only
released one public statement
, on July 23.
“I know that the community continues to closely follow the status of the Elementary Program Review (EPR),” Plamondon said.
“Conversations are continuing with the ministry about this, and I will update you as soon as I have news to share. While the discussion continues, I want to assure parents that no students will be required to move schools for the 2025–2026 school year.”
How long will the OCDSB be under supervision?
That has not been made public. Education Minister Paul Calandra’s press secretary Emma Testani said Plamondon “will take the time necessary to bring the board back to balance, ensure long-term financial stability, and review the elementary program review.”
To keep the community informed, the supervisor will be posting his decisions regularly online, she said.
What’s the role of the supervisor and how does this affect school board processes?
Trustees will no longer have the authority to make decisions. Supervisors appointed by the province represent the Ministry of Education’s vested control, overseeing and managing the administration of the boards, including financial management, policy implementation and operational oversight, according to the Ministry of Education.
Supervisors provide the ministry with regular updates on their work, focus on addressing the deteriorating financial positions of the boards and identify where they can implement savings measures and improve operational efficiencies.
Trustees’ cellphones and email accounts have been suspended. But some trustees have created workarounds. Lyra Evans said people have reached out through social media and older emails from campaigns and community events.
Donna Blackburn released a new email address on social media and said she will continue to volunteer as a private citizen.
“I will not be communicating with people as the trustee for Barrhaven, but rather as a person who knows that system very well and can make suggestions on how to have any issues people may have addressed.”
Blackburn adds that while the board is not meeting, some board committees, such as the special education advisory committee (SEAC), are legislated bodies and will continue to meet.
Plamondon has invited parents to contact him directly at
.
“Although supervision means elected trustees have no decision-making authority, I have asked staff to take extra steps to ensure the district remains open and responsive to parents, students, and the broader community,” he said.
What other changes are underway at the OCDSB?
Plamondon has announced that
student assessments for Grades 9 and 10 will be reintroduced
, beginning this September.
“Although the OCDSB had had final evaluations in Grade 9 and 10, those evaluations have not included a final exam which will better prepare them for more consequential evaluations in Grade 11 and 12,” Plamondon said in his message to parents.
“Following a review of our Student Success Days and feedback from teachers and parents, I have directed staff to reintroduce exams or summative assessments in Grade 9 and 10, beginning in September 2025.”
Are school bus routes covered this year?
This has been a nerve-wracking question for families since 2023, when the families of 7,500 students in Ottawa’s two English-language school boards learned that their
children would not have school bus transportation
only days before Labour Day. The main problem? Recruiting and retaining drivers.
The Ottawa Student Transportation Authority, the school bus consortium that manages bus transportation for Ottawa’s two English-language school boards, says it
doesn’t expect any long-term bus cancellations
as students return to school in September. But general manager Stacey Kay did not rule out short-term cancellations.
“With improved stability for the start of the year, our next goal is to improve service reliability and minimize short-term cancellations throughout the school year,” she said. “A key part of achieving this will be to better understand the factors that contribute to driver recruitment and retention.”
Meanwhile, on Sept. 1,
OC Transpo will eliminate the youth monthly pass
and the pre-teen discounted fares, with 11 to 19-year-olds paying the full adult fare of $135.
Over 85 per cent of Youth Passes were sold to school boards and not to individual customers in the 2024 winter semester.
The elimination of the youth fare pass will not directly affect the approximately 20,000 eligible students that get school board passes from OSTA, said Kay.
The fare increase is projected to raise OSTA’s 2025-2026 public transit budget by $4.8 million. OSTA received about $83.2 million from its two partner school boards in 2024-25 and is projected to receive $93.5 million from partner school boards in 2025-26, she said. About 47 per cent of the increase reflects additional funding due to the elimination of the youth transit fare.
What’s a ‘boomerang’ lunch and why is it such a thing this fall?
Ottawa families will have to learn to pack litterless or “boomerang” lunches after school
blue bin recycling for plastics, glass and metal was cancelled
. The contractor who provided the service for all four Ottawa school boards decided not to renew the contract this summer.
Essentially, a boomerang lunch means that any food wrapping or packaging sent to school will “boomerang” right back home. If the school doesn’t have a composting program, food scraps will also return home. Schools are encouraging families to use reusable containers.
Any other pressure points for families?
Hundreds of OCDSB parents with small children are looking for before and after-school care after learning there
aren’t enough extended day child-care spaces in schools
. As of Aug. 21, t
here were 1,005 children on waitlists for 68 licensed programs in OCDSB schools. The Ottawa Catholic School Board reported waitlists at. two of its schools.
The issue? A chronic shortage of early childhood educators across the province and the country.
What about new schools?
There will be two new schools opening in Ottawa.
The
Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario, the French public board, opened école élémentaire publique Des Visionnaires on Aug. 26. The school on Robin Easey Avenue in Barrhaven is for students from kindergarten to Grade 6, and has a capacity of 475 students.
The OCDSB is opening Riverside South Secondary School on Earl Armstrong Road at Spratt Road. The Grade 7 to 12 school offers both English and French Immersion. The school will open to Grades 7 to 10 this school year, with Grades 11 and 12 added in subsequent years.
Fun fact: According to the OCDSB’s school naming procedure, revised in 2023, school name proposals must avoid names of an individual or a family, that are of a politically partisan or sacred nature, or that might have any potentially harmful interpretations or social contexts.
Will there be any curriculum changes this fall?
That was the plan, but it has been postponed.
The Ministry of Education was to introduce curriculum changes in September, including a new kindergarten curriculum focuses on foundational literacy and numeracy, introducing fractions, coding, and patterns earlier than before. The Grade 10 Canadian history course was to include mandatory learning about the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide, the Holocaust, and Black Canadian history. The Grades 7 and 8 History curriculum was to include new mandatory learning about Black Canadians.
However, Education Minister Paul Calandra announced on June 27 that the changes are on pause “so that a more consistent curriculum can be brought forward for the province of Ontario, and that teachers have the opportunity to be prepared to deliver on that curriculum in 2026-27.”
