Gathered in the cold drizzle outside a North York high school Saturday afternoon, parents, students and education advocates continued to push back against the province’s supervision of Toronto’s public school board and its funding levels.
Speakers at the demonstration objected to the replacement of trustees, who were returned to public office in last month’s municipal election, with the Toronto District School Board’s provincially-appointed supervisor, who was installed by Education Minister Paul Calandra in June 2025.
“The province controls both sides of the board’s budget now,” Kamin Peyrow Lee, a parent of students in Grade 1 and Grade 7 at Swansea Junior and Senior Public School, said among a crowd of about 35 people holding protest signs.
“The ministry controls all the money going in, and the provincially-appointed supervisor controls all of the money going out. If the budget could be fixed with this amount of money, it would have been fixed by now.”
While the province’s education spending is at its highest — $42.7 billion in 2025-26 — critics charge it has not kept up with the real costs school boards face. A recent report by the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario said that while funding is increasing, it is at a much slower rate than in previous years and is actually decreasing when inflation is factored in.
Peyrow Lee later said that she joined the protest because “accountability to the parents has broken in this new governance structure.”
“You need a lot of trust in the education systems to hand over your kids for most of the day,” she added.
“Either they reinstate trustees and we have a voice through our democratically-elected (representatives), or we find other ways to speak up, and they’ll have to hear from us directly. That’s just what this is.”
A spokesperson for Calandra recently reiterated the ministry’s conditions for ending supervision in an email to the Star.
“The minister has been clear from the beginning, before municipal elections, that school boards will remain under provincial supervision for as long as it takes to ensure they are financially stable, well managed, and focused on student success. Anyone who chose to run for trustee did so knowing this,” Emma Testani said.
Other speakers described overcrowded classrooms, facilities in disrepair, and a shortage of special education teachers and other resources for students who need support.
“There is a limit of what we can do when the government is refusing to fund schools to the bare minimum required to operate,” said Megan Roberts, a parent of three children at Mountview Alternative School.
“If the supervisor really wants to run the public school system like a business, he should be requesting the funds to invest in the things students and educators need to thrive.”
Saturday’s demonstration at Westview Centennial Secondary School was preceded by rallies at 25 TDSB elementary schools on Wednesday organized by the same parent-led Toronto Education Advocacy Network. The sustained pushback comes before looming contract talks for teachers and education workers, and amid a possible strike vote.
Bargaining with two unions, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, are scheduled to begin later this month, after a labour board decision expected in the coming weeks that will address which issues can be discussed.
A strike vote called by the province’s five major education unions began last week and will continue until midmonth. If members give approval, several other legal steps must be followed before any work stoppage or other job actions.
