Monday, September 8, 2025

Dear Member/Colleague,

This past spring, the Ford government placed the Toronto District School Board, and other school boards, under Ministry of Education supervision. While the government asserts this measure ensures fiscal responsibility and student success, it is clear that it undermines democratically elected trustees, silences community voices, and obscures the impact of underfunded schools.

For Occasional Teachers, this disregard for democracy raises significant concerns. The appointed supervisor focused on cost-cutting and operational efficiencies will very likely result in making staffing changes that threaten our occasional teaching work, reduce our assignments, and potentially lead to less occasional teachers in the field. As we know, Occasional Teachers are precarious workers. Given the existing challenges of precarious employment within our system, centralizing control will most likely hinder effective advocacy for fairness and professional support.

Instead of addressing the Occasional Teacher retention and recruitment crisis, the use of unqualified/uncertified individuals, overcrowded classrooms, rising violence in schools, and the lack of special education supports, the Ford government is focused on centralizing control and blaming school boards for the funding crisis it created. It is bad government decision-making that has resulted in a cumulative funding gap in public education amounting to approximately $6.35 billion over the past seven years.

In May 2025, the Ford government introduced Bill 33, the Supporting Children and Students Act, giving the Minister of Education broad new powers to intervene in school boards beyond finances and mandate police in schools. This unnecessary overreach should concern us all as it opens the door to a troubling vision of public education that includes privatization.

We must collectively and unequivocally oppose Bill 33.

We recognize that school boards are struggling under years of chronic provincial underfunding, and that every dollar should go to supporting students. Accountability is important, but replacing elected trustees with hand-picked, government-appointed supervisors who lack education experience is alarming. Such action also lays the path for further cuts to student supports and services that will negatively impact learning and well-being.

We will share our concerns and priorities directly with the appointed supervisor. Your working conditions and students’ learning conditions will be front and centre. Your Local Executive will make it clear that public education must be protected, and that the voices of Occasional Teachers, other educators, students, parents/guardians, and community members cannot be ignored.

Trustees are elected to represent our communities. They know our local needs and are best positioned to advocate for students and public education, and they are accountable to the communities they serve.

Today, we ask you to contact Premier Doug Ford, Education Minister Paul Calandra, and your local Member of Provincial Parliament using our online email tool at BuildingBetterSchools.ca. Tell them trustees must be free to do their jobs without interference, that boards need adequate and stable funding to support students and educators, and that Ontario’s local school board governance model must be upheld. Please share our action with your friends and neighbours.

Thank you for everything you do for students every day.

In solidarity,

Marisa Gallippi, President
Laura Barrett, First Vice-President
Gabrielle Blais-Jones, Vice-President
Sophie Kroesen, Vice-President