The morning bell is about to ring at Father Serra Catholic School, but parents hurrying to drop off their kids stop in the drizzle to shake hands with a trustee seeking re-election.
“How is everything going?” asks Markus de Domenico, who’s running to represent this Etobicoke ward in the city’s Catholic board. As he stands in front of the school, handing out campaign postcards, parents raise various concerns, including when the area’s new high school will open, with one father calling it “the number one local issue.”
“We’re not being told — the public’s not being told,” says de Domenico, adding he plans to hold a public demonstration to press for answers. “We’re going to shake the tree.”
But how much influence will Toronto trustees have beyond shaking the tree? With both Toronto school boards under provincial supervision and trustees stripped of decision-making powers, the Oct. 26 municipal election raises questions about what candidates can promise voters, and what those elected can actually accomplish.
The issue extends beyond the eight Ontario boards currently under provincial control. Recent legislation has dramatically narrowed the role of trustees provincewide. Although once responsible for overseeing budgets, setting policy direction, and participating in central collective bargaining, their role now focuses primarily on parent and student advocacy.
While the effects of supervision, and recent legislation, are difficult to measure in this election, the numbers are notable: Fewer candidates are running provincewide, compared with the previous two election cycles.
“Trustees have been turned into a complaints department, with no powers to fix any problem ,” says Myer Siemiatycki, professor emeritus of politics and public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“We are in totally new ground,” he says, in these elections.
Outside Father Serra school, a mother tells the Star these are indeed unusual elections, but it won’t discourage her from voting.
“If you have the right person in place they can actually do a lot,” she says. “I think it makes this election that much more important to go out and make sure you’re picking someone who has an active voice in the community.”
De Domenico, who served two terms and was chair of the Toronto Catholic District School Board when the province stepped in, says he can still help parents navigate the system. (While trustees at Catholic boards under supervision retain authority on denominational matters, they otherwise have no powers and cannot deal directly with staff, who now report to the supervisor.)
“I get calls every day still …. I advise parents as best I can because I know how the system works. … What we’re seeing is we don’t have a parent voice. There are no public board meetings. The parents can’t advocate for their kids other than to phone a number.”
His sole challenger for TCDSB Ward 2, Sara Concordia, says even with reduced powers, parents need a strong voice, especially when it comes to protecting Catholic education and holding the board accountable.
“We will have limited authority, but we still should be representing our communities,” she says, noting her priorities include adequate resources and textbooks for classrooms, along with air conditioning in schools, both of which she fought for while on parent council at her daughter’s school.
Tasha Kheiriddin, who is running in Ward 7 of the Toronto District School Board, says key issues for voters include class size, school safety, technology use and a “frustration that they feel that their voices are not in the conversation.”
Among the common refrains she’s heard on the doorstep are: “I didn’t know I could vote for trustees. I thought the province got rid of them.” Others are more pointed, saying: “What are you actually going to do, because the trustees are not sitting?”
To that, she typically responds that yes, powers have been curtailed, but when supervision lifts she wants to be “one of the people there to make positive change.”
Beginning in 2025 and continuing into early 2026, the province took control of eight school boards, citing concerns that included growing deficits, depleting reserves and financial mismanagement. All remain under supervision: Thames Valley, Toronto’s public and Catholic boards, Ottawa-Carleton, Peel’s public and Catholic boards, Near North and York Catholic.
Education Minister Paul Calandra has warned it could take years before trustees in those boards regain their governance roles, saying he’ll hand back power once he’s confident the individual boards are being well-run.
It’s not only supervision that is changing the voting landscape, but also new legislation. Bill 33, the Supporting Children and Students Act, became law in November 2025, giving the province expanded powers to investigate and take over boards facing financial or governance issues. It also requires boards to reinstate the controversial school resource officer program if the local police service offers it.
Months later, Bill 101, the Putting Student Achievement First Act, went further. Reforms included capping the number of trustees at Ontario boards at 12 — a move only affecting the TDSB, which previously had 22 wards — and cutting their annual honorarium to a maximum of $10,000, down from roughly $25,000 at the TDSB. The legislation also created a new CEO who leads the budget process — and if the CEO and trustees cannot agree, the minister has the final say. English public and Catholic trustee associations were also stripped of their central bargaining role.
Siemiatycki suspects supervision, and new legislation, has had a chilling effect on people wanting to run for trustee.
“I think definitely that this reduction in the scope of power and honorarium for school trustees is a major factor in bringing about a significant reduction in the number of individuals prepared to take on this position to run for office,” he said.
The minister’s press secretary says the suggestion that holding school boards accountable prevents trustees from representing their communities is “categorically false.”
“Trustees have repeatedly said they are elected to represent parents, protect public education and ensure students receive the education they deserve, and they remain fully able to do so under the Putting Student Achievement First Act,” said Emma Testani in a statement.
She said the legislation ensures board resources are spent on student success, “by restricting unnecessary trustee spending, strengthening financial oversight, introducing qualified professional leadership, and putting safeguards in place to prevent the kind of dysfunction that has plagued some school boards.”
Patrick Daly, executive director of Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, thinks the new legislation might have actually “inspired,” rather than discouraged, some people to run, noting “the vast majority of people who run, and stay, as Catholic trustees do so because they see it as a vocation.”
The Ontario Public School Boards’ Association says interest in the position remains high. For instance, Toronto’s public board has 77 candidates, with eight incumbents seeking re-election — and no acclamations. (The city’s Catholic board has 31 candidates, including seven incumbents seeking re-election — there are two acclamations.)
While the role and responsibilities of trustees have changed, OPSBA says they help set a board’s direction, ask questions about how public resources are used and keep local priorities in view.
“Public education and your children and youth are too important to be solely governed at a distance from Queen’s Park,” it says.
Siemiatycki says that by limiting trustees to an advocacy role, the province may have inadvertently created space for them to become stronger critics of provincial education policy.
“Rather than eroding and minimizing the voice and role of trustees, there is a possibility — depending on how trustees want to exercise the role that’s now open to them — for a far greater public presence and voice by school trustees,” he says. “They may actually become amplified voices for the direction of public education in Ontario.”
