A new Ontario auditor general report on the Toronto District School Board provides an insightful overview of many of the issues identified under the toxic reign of now-departed activist education director Colleen Russell-Rawlins.
From underreported bullying and increased violence in TDSB schools to the abuse of sick days and the administration’s powers to investigate principals and vice-principals, it is clear that Canada’s largest school board needs a huge overhaul.
Whether that will happen is debatable considering the same leftist union-backed trustees that supported their DEI hire, Russell-Rawlins, are all part of a committee to select the TDSB’s next education director.
To add insult to injury, Education Minister Jill Dunlop — while talking a good game — recently appointed DEI advocate Patrick Case, a close associate of Russell-Rawlins, to review a field trip gone wrong at the school board in September.
That field trip for students as young as eight, which was supposed to provide insights into years of mercury poisoning on the Grassy Narrows reserve, turned into a hate fest against Israel with union members from the Elementary Teachers Federation of Toronto helping to lead the charge.
The TDSB oversees 472 elementary schools and 110 high schools and has more than 40,000 employees. The school board’s budget was $3.6-billion in 2022-23. Despite huge cash outflows from the province, the board has constantly experienced deficits because the money has not been managed well.
The 97-page report, which looks at the period between the 2017 and 2022 school years, found that violent incidents in board schools increased by 67%. It is interesting to note, however, that the audit found the TDSB underreported incidents by 9% during all of those years — likely because principals were hesitant to report them for fear their school would be perceived unsafe.
The audit’s own figures show hate-related or bias-motivated incidents increased by 733% in elementary schools and 500% in high schools over those six years.
It is absolutely astonishing to note that sex assaults in elementary schools jumped 860% during the same time period studied.
The audit found that only a small percentage of bullying incidents were actually being tracked by the TDSB. A 2022-23 census of 138,000 students in Grades 4 to 12 found that 23% were physically bullied (including being punched, kicked and shoved) while 71% said they were verbally bullied. nother 14% reported that they were cyberbullied.
As I reported earlier this year the TDSB has a tremendous problem with absenteeism.
The audit shows that the average number of sick days increased in seven years by 58% from 12 to more than 20 days per year.
The cost to replace those absent teachers, educational assistants and custodians jumped by 70% from $82-million to $139-million per year.
The AG report concludes that the TDSB has done nothing to manage the out-of-control sick leave and the exorbitant related costs.
In fact, in the final year of the audit period, the school board was not able to cover 20% of the absences and students were likely supervised by staff without teaching qualifications.
As I’ve also reported, there has been a tremendous abuse of the leave provisions to punish school administrators for often ridiculous DEI-related allegations. The audit found that principals and vice-principals were placed on lengthy paid leave for allegations related to discrimination and workplace harassment for up to 1,218 days — which cost the board $4.3-million.
Nearly half of the investigations took more than the specified 150-day time frame.
And it should come as no surprise to anyone that according to the audit, the TDSB has school buildings in the worst condition of all Ontario school boards.
The TDSB repair backlog is $4.1-billion and the board is said not to have a long-term capital and repair plan for allocating the funding that is available to build new schools or maintain existing ones.
For this reason alone — but also for all of the reasons specified in the audit — the sophomoric union-backed leftist trustees should be removed and the board really should be taken over by an adult capable of taking on the tremendous morale issues, the toxic impact of DEI and the board’s precarious financial situation.
Given that I have no faith in the Ford government or the current minister to do what’s difficult but right, perhaps the first step would be to deny long-time leftist trustee Shelley Laskin the opportunity Wednesday — behind closed doors — to put in a leftist lemming of her own choosing to replace Rachel Chernos-Lin, who won the recent Toronto by-election for council in Don Valley West.
Although a by-election would be more costly, at least it would give someone more fiscally conservative the chance to compete democratically for the seat.
It would also ensure transparency and accountability — both of which are severely lacking at the TDSB.
At the very least, I sincerely hope that the education minister takes to heart the many deficiencies noted in the audit.
Students deserve better. So do most teachers and principals who are not just want to teach, not worry about whether they’re being diverse, inclusive and equity-oriented enough.
