Dunlop taking hard line on reckless spending by trustees, so where is the audit of Ontario’s scandal-plagued schools for the deaf and blind?

With limited oversight and only an iota of public awareness, school trustees and staffers in boards across Ontario are using taxpayer dollars meant for educating young learners to enjoy expensive meals, fancy hotels and lavish trips to places like Italy and Hawaii. 

That’s just this year. 

In January, documents obtained through a freedom of information request by CBC London revealed the London Kent District School Board spent over $32,000 to send three staff members to a conference in Hawaii. The trio stayed at a hotel where the room rates were as high as $1,113 a night. 

The Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board spent over $50,000 to send four trustees on a luxury trip to Italy in July. According to reporting by the Brantford Expositor, which obtained travel receipts and expense records, the trustees (elected to ensure the board is run effectively and efficiently) spent $100,000 while overseas on art pieces for a yet to be opened school in the Brantford area; racked up more than $28,000 in hotel bills and treated themselves to a $1,600 meal at a ritzy, 5-star restaurant and spa in the Dolomites—all on the taxpayer’s dime. After the details came to light the trustees have promised to pay back the cost of the trip. 

Then, in August, the Thames Valley District School Board doled out over $38,000 to send 18 staff members to a three-day retreat in Toronto with a stay at the Rogers Centre hotel that overlooks the Blue Jays ballpark. In the same month, the London District School Board was caught in its own spending scandal. Documents uncovered by the London Free Press through a freedom of information request show the board spent $16,000 on a one-night stay at the Stone Mill Inn in St. Catharines for a two-day meeting attended by 26 staffers.

Education Minister Jill Dunlop inherited many of these scandals after taking over the portfolio in the middle of August. Since then she’s announced a “governance review” of the Catholic board following the exorbitant Italy trip and has said a “management audit” is being conducted of the Thames Valley District School Board after its spending on the Toronto retreat. 

“Our government increased public education funding to historic levels to support student achievement and better equip teachers in the classroom, not to expense trips on public dollars by school board staff,” Dunlop wrote in a statement in mid-October after announcing the review of the Catholic board. She added the board “not only failed students and parents, but the community with a serious lack of fiscal responsibility and judgment.”

Education Minister Jill Dunlop has not provided any details about future audits into all school boards in Ontario.

(Jill Dunlop/X)

Since then, Dunlop and other PC MPPs have suggested the government is considering a review of all school boards in Ontario.

There are 72 public school boards in Ontario. A request for further information about these audits sent to the Ministry of Education was not returned.

The spending scandals have also caught the eye of advocates for Ontario’s schools for the deaf and blind. The Provincial Demonstration School Branch (PDSB) has seven schools across Ontario responsible for children who are blind, deaf, deaf/blind, or have other special needs. These schools have been underfunded, understaffed and plagued with allegations of mental, physical and emotional abuse of both students and staff for years. 

The mismanagement and disturbing examples of abuse have been documented in past reporting from The Pointer through multiple sources, including top union officials and parents of children within the Board; documents from lawyers and teachers, inspection logs from the Ontario government as well as independent studies into the general treatment of children with disabilities across Canada.

Allegations of misuse of taxpayer dollars within this system have been repeated for years, and the dollar figures attributed to these issues dwarf the combined figures of inappropriate spending among the four school boards currently under the microscope. 

The Government of Ontario has paid out $23 million in taxpayer funds to settle class action lawsuits alleging widespread abuse dating back decades. No substantial review of the numerous allegations has been completed and no improved accountability mechanisms have been put in place by the Province following these lawsuits. The Pointer has learned more lawsuits are in the works.

So why has no audit been called to examine why Ontario taxpayers are shelling out millions for the provincial government to settle lawsuits and avoid any admission of wrongdoing? Responsible governance would involve an investigation to determine the issues that are leading to these numerous lawsuits and resolve them to ensure the problem can not repeat itself. 

There has never been such an audit. 

The key difference with the Provincial Demonstrations School Branch is there is no elected board of trustees to review. The board is run through the Provincial Schools Authority, the administrative branch that is appointed by the Province and manages the system on their behalf.

“For taxpayer dollars, we know that tens of millions of dollars have been paid out already, we know there are more lawsuits pending, you would think if you're really concerned about accountable use of taxpayer dollars and making sure they are going to things that the taxpayers of Ontario would expect, that one of the first houses they would want to clean is their own and actually conduct that investigation that parents, and students and teachers and education workers have been asking for into the provincial schools,” says NDP MPP Chandra Pasma, one of the few politicians who has demanded improvement in these schools designed to serve some of Ontario’s most vulnerable learners. 

“I have no problem calling it hypocrisy,” Pasma says. ““They’re so quick to call these investigations into school boards, and then when it’s their own wrongdoing there’s just no acknowledgement.”

NDP MPP Chandra Pasma has repeatedly pushed the PC government to conduct a review of the allegations of abuse and mismanagement within the Provincial Demonstrations School Branch.

(Ontario Legislative Assembly)

Regardless of the mechanisms, requests for audits and reviews have been made for years.

“While the government focuses on one school board’s overspending of $145,000, the real victims—children like our daughter and her classmate, who have endured neglect, abuse, and assault under Ontario’s Deaf school system—continue to be ignored,” the father of Jane, a PDSB student whose story has previously been detailed by The Pointer, states. “Over the past 12 years, the Province has paid out $23 million in settlements for these serious issues, and now faces two more lawsuits from disabled students alleging severe mistreatment by the administration. Yet, no investigation has been launched into the harm done to students or the systemic failures that allowed this abuse to continue. Even more troubling, there has been no investigation into the two educators named in the current lawsuits, Jeanne Leonard and Cindy Smith, who still hold positions of authority over vulnerable children today. We simply don’t understand.”

Leonard and Smith are both named in a lawsuit filed by Jane and her family against the PDSB and the Province. Leonard is the current principal at E.C. Drury in Milton, and Smith is the former principal at E.C. Drury from 2017 to 2021, when Jane attended the school, who now works with the Waterloo Region District School Board. 

In a lawsuit filed in 2022, Jane and her family called on the Government of Ontario to conduct a systematic review of the PDSB to finally address the long-standing accountability issues and root out senior leadership who refuse to acknowledge that change is required, despite the obvious harm inflicted on vulnerable students.

The allegations include repeated assaults against her by fellow students, administrators allegedly hid information about these assaults from police, and refused to conduct the necessary medical assessments to provide Jane with the care she desperately needed leading to misdiagnoses and years of mental anguish culminating in her attempting suicide multiple times. 

It’s further alleged that administrators failed to notify Jane’s parents about semi-nude pictures of Jane that were being shared among other students. It’s a serious violation of school policy. 

The allegations are denied by the Province and senior PDSB administrators in a Statement of Defence.

Minister Dunlop has not ruled out a public inquiry into these schools. 

During a September meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice Policy, Pasma pushed Dunlop on the potential inquiry. 

“There have been serious allegations of abuse and discrimination at these schools, they are underfunded, they have serious teacher shortages, students are being sent to the library or going home for the day,” Pasma said during the meeting. “There are crumbling and unsafe buildings, I can show you pictures, so can the teachers who work in those buildings if you’re willing to meet with them…Will you do what your predecessor refused to do and call a provincial inquiry into conditions at these schools?”

After first attempting to dodge the question—something former Education Minister Stephen Lecce did repeatedly— Dunlop said: “We can take that back.” 

It was the first time the PC government has ever kept the door open to a potential investigation into wrongdoing and abuse in these schools. The PCs have previously dismissed the issues as nothing but “opposition rhetoric”. 

Pasma has made repeated attempts to improve accountability within these schools, including a request for Ontario’s auditor general to conduct a value for money audit. When the AG’s office stated their slate of audits was full for the year, the NDP put forward a motion to have a review of the PDSB prioritized. 

The request, made at the committee level at Queen’s Park, was met with a shameful display of apathy toward the suffering of these students. 

PC MPPs Will Bouma, Dave Smith, Donna Skelly, Jess Dixon and Anthony Leardi, all voted against the resolution.

None of them commented on the request, or explained their opposition. Several appeared to be using their cellphones while NDP MPP France Gélinas, who introduced the motion, and Pasma expressed the dire need for review.

The impact here goes beyond simple financial waste, as students are suffering mental, physical, and sexual abuse, the ripple effects of which will last for years. For example,

When Jane was 13, according to evidence in an ongoing lawsuit, Jane was violently assaulted at her PDSB school, leaving her with a traumatic brain injury and what she described as “lightning” in her head. 

These long-lasting impacts are why Pasma believes an inquiry into the PDSB should, at the very least, be prioritized alongside the current reviews into reckless spending at other boards. 

“It’s not appropriate, but I don’t think it’s deeply impacting anyone’s future that a school board had an out-of-town retreat,” she says. “Whereas failing to support students at the provincial schools really is about the rest of their lives. Whether they will be able to live independently, whether they will be able to be employed, whether they’re dealing with trauma from the school. So the stakes are incredibly high when it comes to the provincial schools.”

The Ministry of Education was asked if the PDSB is being considered for any review. 

It did not respond. 

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