Advocates protest underfunding of education system as Peel school boards remain under provincial supervision

“Shame! Shame! Shame!” 

Almost 200 protesters shouted in front of Queen’s Park on August 29 in opposition to the PC government's cuts to education. 

“Out with Doug Ford” they chanted in front of Ontario’s legislature, as part of the ‘Fight Ford Province-wide’ protest. Bonnie Powell worked in both Peel's and Toronto’s education system for 30 years and retired in 2024, but she has been hosting rallies against Ford since February.

The downtown Toronto event was one of more than 50 around the province held at the end of August before the lights inside classrooms were switched back on this week, as students walked inside schools facing the latest cuts imposed by Ford’s PC government. 

Almost 200 people gathered at Queen’s Park to show their opposition to Doug Ford’s province-wide changes to education funding from kindergarten to post-secondary.

(Benjamin Steeves/The Pointer)

Across Peel, families are entering another school year with concerns about staffing shortages, special-education supports, classroom pressures and an increasingly complex set of special supports many students need, from language skills and issues around learning challenges to mental health and well being concerns.

The provincial government continues to exert unprecedented control over boards and is still directly supervising the Peel District School Board (PDSB) and  the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board (DPCDSB) following the Education Ministry’s conclusion that fiscal and governance management had to be restored before returning responsibilities back to elected trustees who remain sidelined. 

Powell said her activism has focused on the challenges facing students with special needs and their families.

“If you look at the Education Act, it's rather fuzzy with kids for special needs and what they are entitled to, because one would think that all students are entitled to a full day of school by law.”

The issue is unique in Peel, where the size and diversity of the student population places substantial demands on the publicly funded education system.

The PDSB serves one of the largest and most diverse student populations in Canada. In 2025, approximately 85 percent of PDSB’s 155,000 students identified as a visible minority while the board continued to struggle with the consequences of systemic racism that resulted in Ministry intervention previously and 27 binding directives to finally eliminate systemic discrimination. They were issued in March 2020 following a formal review that exposed deeply entrenched anti-Black Racism, other forms of discrimination and serious issues with board leadership and governance.

In November 2019, Ontario’s education minister at the time, Stephen Lecce (Paul Calandra has held the role since March 2025) repeatedly voiced his own concern after stakeholders across diverse Black communities, families, students and trustees filed several complaints about anti-Black racism in the Board, prompting Lecce to launch a three-member team that conducted an extensive review. The findings presented to Lecce in February 2020, prompted him to issue the 27 binding directives and address the unsettling behaviour of several elected trustees. 

Senior staff previously said 25 of the 27 directives have been completed, but the board has long been criticized in the past for claiming directives have been met while the root causes of several key issues remain unaddressed.

While equity has been a major issue within Peel schools, the financial pressures affecting the system cut across virtually every aspect of education, from classroom staffing to special education and infrastructure. 

PC officials say the government is putting more money into schools and classrooms, describing its education strategy as a “back-to-basics” approach focused on improving student achievement.

In June, the government announced a $60-million investment in a province-wide digital learning platform, saying it would give teachers access to modern classroom resources and allow students to use interactive tools to track their progress. Then on September 1, the government expanded Student and Family Support Offices to all 72 school boards across the province including those serving Peel.

The PCs say the offices are intended to give parents another way to raise concerns, navigate complex issues and receive assistance when problems cannot be resolved through a child’s teacher or principal.

For advocates such as Powell, another office to call is not the solution: she wants more educators and resources inside classrooms to prevent the problems before they develop.

“How long will it take them to get supports? This is stupid timing. Why didn't they set this up in June so those kids could be ready to go in September?”

The financial situation facing Peel’s school boards is complicated. The PDSB’s 2026-27 budget totals approximately $2.165 billion, while the board initially projected a deficit of approximately $35 million, but that was reduced to $10.9 million after what the board called “Supervisor Savings”, which were handed down by the appointed provincial supervisor who took over governance of the board when trustees were stripped of their role.

Those savings amounted to $24.1 million and were largely connected to changes in central-office staffing, including the elimination of 25 positions classified as surplus, and reductions involving the management of schools and facilities, identifying vacancies and attrition opportunities.

The PDSB’s Special Education Fund has been cut by $7.5 million year-over-year including a $5.4-million reduction in per-pupil special-education funding and a $828,000 reduction in funding for specialized equipment for students with disabilities.

For families relying on such supports, the reduced numbers are not abstract accounting figures, they will translate directly into fewer staff members, longer waits for support, reduced access to specialized equipment and students who cannot remain at school because the necessary support is unavailable. 

Powell believes the bottom line approach, cutting the way an accountant might find savings, fails to consider the complexity of what happens in the long run when more and more children fall through the cracks.

“You can't say ‘Oh, we'll put this much money for each child in a school,’ these are human beings that are really suffering. How can you put a price, how do you figure that budget out?”

DPCDSB’s 2026-27 operating budget is approximately $1.067 billion and identified a number of structural financial pressures, including declining enrolment, its employer-paid long-term disability plan and increasing operational service demands.

The DPCDSB’s projected 2026-27 deficit, after what was also listed as “Supervisor Savings,” is $35.4 million, while the board projected an accumulated deficit of $150.7 million as of August 31, 2027.

Inside PDSB schools, families are also trying to understand why the Ministry once again took over the board in January (after it was taken over following the systemic racism review a half-decade earlier), citing concerns about “infighting and long-term financial unsustainability that risk disrupting learning and undermining student outcomes.”

The move immediately halted a planned layoff of 60 classroom teachers that the Ministry said would have affected nearly 1,400 students in the middle of the school year, while the board had been running deficits for five consecutive years.

But the PC intervention also brought questions about where the money was going and whether administrative spending was being prioritized over classroom supports.

Melody Hurtubise, president of OPSEU 2100, which represents 4,800 educational assistants and early childhood educators at the PDSB, previously told The Pointer that funding cuts by the Ministry had been challenging, while also criticizing the board’s management.

She said management positions had increased while educational assistants and early childhood education supports were being cut as nine new management positions had been created across several departments that year, including positions involving special education and human resources.

The PDSB’s Director, Rashmi Swarup, faced widespread criticism after already being named in a lawsuit for her alleged role in failing to address systemic discrimination. Swarup announced her early retirement and will step down at the end of November. 

The PCs are now facing increased scrutiny for the way it is managing the education file, especially after taking over eight of the largest boards in the province including both of Toronto’s publicly funded boards and Peel’s.

President of the Toronto Elementary Catholic Teachers union Deborah Karam, who was in attendance at the rally, said teachers are now left coping with even fewer resources to help them.

“We should protest against Doug Ford for what he's done to education. I think the more people who show up, shows him that we are concerned.”

She wants authority returned to elected board trustees and says educators have effectively been cut off from decision making since the Ministry took over the eight boards (Toronto District School Board; Peel District School Board; Toronto Catholic District School Board; Thames Valley District School Board; Ottawa-Carleton District School Board; Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board; York Catholic District School Board; Near North District School Board).

Powell questioned the qualifications of those appointed by the PC government to take over the eight school boards.

“People were joking about it because if you look at their specialties, none of them have any background in education or special needs or social work or psychology, psychiatry.”

An educator for over 30 years, Bonnie Powell says teachers across Ontario are spending more of their own money for basic classroom supplies.

(Benjamin Steeves/The Pointer)

In March, the PCs appointed Heather Watt as supervisor of the PDSB despite her lack of experience in the education sector.

According to her LinkedIn profile, as reported previously by The Pointer, Watt had worked as chief of staff to the deputy premier and minister of health and long-term care, and as a primary assistant to former PC MPP Christine Elliott, who served as health minister before moving on from politics.

Powell says the lack of direct classroom, education administration and special-education experience in decision-making positions is a big problem.

“I don't know what the heck they're trying to do now, but they're not consulting all of the experts at the boards… You have to have been down there in the trenches.”

Powell described a tragic incident she believes could have been easily avoided, if the proper leadership had been in place to provide the types of resources many students need.

In December, 7-year-old Hamilton student Maximus Simao, who was non-verbal and autistic, was sent home from school early due to a shortage of special education staff. He was struck by a Hamilton Street Railway bus and later died from his injuries.

“They didn't have anybody there because the EA was sick. The principal won't take the kid. The VP, if they have a VP, won't take the kid. There was no support, and they called the mom to come and get him partway through the day, and then he got run over by a bus.”

The incident, she said, demonstrates why the discussion around funding cannot simply focus on whether a board has technically allocated money toward special education; resources need to be available when a child needs them.

“The thing is with the parents of these kids, they also may have autism. They are suffering too in their own ways. So to ask them to be fully mentally and physically capable at the drop of a hat to come and pick up their special needs child, that's just too much to ask. It's just not really taking the full picture into account of these families.”

When schools lack the specific staff with specific skills to accommodate a student for an entire day, parents often effectively become part of the education system’s emergency staffing plan. 

In February 2025, The Pointer reported that major education unions estimated students received, on average, $1,500 less in core funding annually than in 2018, when Doug Ford became premier.

The same investigation found that Ontario had approximately 5,000 fewer classroom educators than in 2018, while principals across the province reported daily shortages of teachers and support staff.

A People for Education survey found that principals described staffing as the “number one area of stress and concern” for school administrators.

The Ontario Autism Coalition’s Special Education Survey, included 429 families across 60 school boards. It found that 89 percent of students required an Individualized Education Plan. Many families reported dissatisfaction with the implementation of those plans, with the majority saying some or none of the requirements were implemented.

The survey also found that 50 percent of the families who took part in the autism association’s review were consistently worried about their child’s safety at school and 37 percent said their children were excluded from parts of school life because of inadequate accommodations.

Those figures reinforce Powell’s concern that special education cannot be treated as a simple line in a budget. The issue, she said, is whether the system has the capacity to deliver what has been promised to students.

Infrastructure is another part of the equation. Underfunding is not confined to staffing as the education ministry also struggles with a massive backlog of school repairs; the province had an estimated $31.4-billion school repair backlog over a ten-year period.

Dufferin-Peel teachers from Peel’s Catholic School Board have raised concerns about overcrowded classrooms, growing special-education pressures and staff shortages, and pointed to aging infrastructure at some older Brampton schools, including reported health and safety concerns involving elevated lead levels in drinking water.

The board’s newcomer assessment program also lost its dedicated teacher to reassignment, with the position left vacant.

The PC government’s “Putting Student Achievement First” plan says the province is focused on foundational skills including mathematics, science and literacy.

In June, the government announced another $60 million for classroom resources for access to a provincewide digital learning platform. The Ministry says the initiative will give teachers access to curriculum-aligned resources and help identify student learning gaps. The platform is scheduled to be available to teachers starting this school year.

The government says the new Student and Family offices will review concerns raised by parents after initial engagement with teachers and principals, acknowledge inquiries within two business days and aim to provide answers within five business days.

But the creation of another administrative avenue for complaints does not answer the underlying question of resource cuts that Powell and others across Ontario are focused on.

“Who is working in these offices? Is it appointed people? Are they just surveilling these people? Is that what they're trying to do? Are they just trying to find out who's complaining? Is there a budget for this for these offices, and what is the budget? And are there psychologists, social workers, special ed teachers all on board working in these offices?”

The Ministry says the offices are designed to make school boards more accountable and give families a clear avenue to seek help; but critics at the rally said accountability means little if the system lacks the funding to provide the support families are asking for.

The PDSB’s 2026-27 budget was approved on June 25 while the DPCDSB budget faced criticism over the limited opportunity for public consultation after provincial supervision effectively cut residents out of the process.

Parents, teachers and community organizations had expected to provide feedback in person, but an online feedback form was used instead. Chandra Pasma, the NDP education critic, argued that public consultation is important because budgets ultimately determine what happens inside schools.

Teachers’ representatives similarly said they had been excluded from conversations about supervision, governance and the future of education. The lack of consultation had particular implications for special education. Powell believes experienced educators, social workers, psychologists and other specialists need a larger role in setting budgets.

“Why are the women being ignored in this? This is my big thing. Why are the women with the expertise who have been in the trenches for so long, why are they being totally shut out and ignored?”

The $7.5-million reduction in PDSB’s Special Education Fund, the $5.4-million cut to per-pupil special-education funding, the $828,000 reduction for specialized equipment, the millions in projected deficits and the provincewide repair backlog all point toward a system under pressure.

As Peel’s students return to classrooms, performance will not be measured in government announcements and balanced budgets, but by whether children who need additional support actually receive it, and how that support helps achieve educational success.

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