TORONTO, ON – This morning, local presidents of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), representing educators in school boards currently under Ontario Ministry of Education supervision, issued a joint letter to Education Minister Paul Calandra. The letter was also shared with ministry-appointed supervisors, directors of education at supervised boards, and the leadership of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association and the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association. It read as follows:

“As local presidents in supervised school boards, we are compelled to speak publicly about troubling decisions being made behind closed doors and the impact they are having on our public schools. 

Since the takeovers of our boards, we have witnessed a pattern of choices imposed without transparency, meaningful consultation, or any clear connection to students’ needs. Instead, these decisions appear to be driven almost exclusively by deep cost-cutting, with little regard for fixing the long-term funding formula consequences for learning and working conditions, or for the well-being of the communities our schools serve. In some cases, however, supervisors are not achieving savings at all, instead increasing costs through high salaries and discretionary funds. This is particularly concerning given the government’s public assertion that ministry-appointed supervisors would perform better than trustees. In reality, supervisors are encountering the same systemic challenges that locally elected trustees faced, demonstrating that the issues are structural, not the result of local governance.