WHY I HAVE DECIDED NOT TO RUN FOR A PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARD TRUSTEE POSITION
The municipal election campaign is in full swing in Ontario, with Election Day set for October 26. I clearly remember the excitement of the last election: putting up "Vote for Larsen" signs with my campaign team, knocking on doors, speaking with residents, and hoping that our hard work would be rewarded. It was. On election night, I was honoured to be elected as one of two trustees representing London Wards 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 on the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB).
I served in that role with pride until April 2025, when the provincial government placed the TVDSB under supervision, effectively removing elected trustees from their representative and governance responsibilities. From the outset, I took the role seriously. I have long believed that a strong public education system is one of the cornerstones of a democratic society. To prepare myself for the position, I immersed myself in learning about the responsibilities of school board trustees in Ontario. I read the Education Act, completed professional learning modules offered by the Ontario Public School Boards' Association, attended conferences and workshops, and sought every opportunity to become a more effective trustee.
In Ontario, trustees have been responsible for setting strategic direction and policy, approving budgets, hiring and evaluating the director of education, and engaging with students, parents, staff, and community partners. Effective governance, however, depends on trust. Trustees must work collaboratively with senior administration, including the Director of Education (now renamed the CEO) and superintendents, to serve students and the public interest. Trust is the invisible infrastructure of governance. Without it, effective governance becomes difficult, if not impossible. This is not the place to explore the origins of the trust deficit that I experienced during my tenure at the TVDSB. Suffice it to say that it existed and made effective governance difficult if not impossible.
As challenging as those governance issues were, they are not the primary reason why I am not to seeking re-election. Four years ago, I wrote in my blog post What Do School Board Trustees Do and Why Do We Need Them?:
Over 170 years, the number of school boards and trustees increased. However, since the 1990s, that has changed and there has been a decrease in the number of school boards and trustees. Before the 1960s there were over 3,000 school boards in Ontario. Today, there are only 72. In addition, the role of school board trustees has been diminished and, because Ontario's population has grown substantially, each trustee now represents more constituents than ever before. Locally elected trustees once had the authority to tax citizens for the maintenance of schools. They also oversaw matters such as curriculum, hiring teachers, and building schools. Today, those powers reside with the provincial Ministry of Education.
I continued my blog post, asking Do we still need school board trustees? And my answer, back then, was a resounding yes. Four years ago, I still believed trustees played an important role in preserving local democracy and ensuring public accountability in education.
My perspective has changed over the past four years. Successive provincial governments have steadily reduced the authority of locally elected trustees. Most recently, that trend accelerated with the passage of Bill 33, the Supporting Children and Students Act, in November 2024. The legislation significantly expanded the Minister of Education's powers to direct, investigate, and intervene in the affairs of school boards.
Supporters may argue that these measures strengthen accountability. From my perspective, however, they further weaken local democratic governance. School boards have always operated within a provincial legislative framework, but Bill 33 extends the Minister's authority into areas that were once firmly within the domain of locally elected trustees. For example, the Minister can now investigate boards on broader grounds than before, including matters deemed to be in the public interest. The legislation also expands the government's ability to intervene when boards fail to comply with ministerial directions.
More recently, the government has proposed a regulation that would require board CEOs to review and confirm trustee motions and board decisions before they take effect. If implemented, this would represent a significant shift in the relationship between elected trustees and board administration. Trustees may still debate and vote on motions, but the practical effect of those decisions would become contingent on administrative approval. Taken together, these changes suggest a continuing trend toward the centralization of authority and away from local democratic governance
For me, however, the most significant change has been the gradual erosion of trustees' authority over finances. Before the education reforms of the late 1990s, locally elected trustees played a meaningful role in determining education tax rates and, by extension, the revenues available to support local schools. That created a direct democratic connection between taxpayers, elected trustees, and educational funding decisions.
Today, that relationship no longer exists. The provincial government sets education property tax rates and determines school board funding through a centralized funding formula. Trustees remain responsible for approving budgets, but their ability to shape those budgets has steadily narrowed as provincial rules governing expenditures have become increasingly detailed and prescriptive.
During my time on the TVDSB, I sometimes felt that trustees were given opportunities to make relatively minor spending decisions within a budget exceeding $1.2 billion. I call these “performative opportunities” as we were simply performing as if we had meaningful input into the budget. We did not. Such minor decision-making highlighted how little flexibility remained within a funding system governed by extensive provincial restrictions and funding envelopes. Indeed, Bill 33 further strengthens provincial control over board finances. It expands auditing powers, allows the Minister to establish additional spending policies, and transfers significant financial authority to the province when a board is placed under supervision. Trustees may still formally approve budgets, but the reality is that trustees have no meaningful powers to make any real difference with respect to the budgets of their school boards. Those days are long gone.
The same pattern can be seen in other aspects of governance. Trustees continue to make policy, but within a framework increasingly shaped [i.e. dictated] by provincial directives. We spent over a year at the TVDSB creating a strategic plan that had to confirm with provincial goals of education, which are perfectly fine, but the process begged the question of the value of spending so much time and resources developing a strategic plan that ultimately, the elected trustees, had very little control over.
Since the passage of Bill 33, the Ministry has assumed greater authority over trustee training, governance requirements, expense policies, and other operational matters. Even one of the core responsibilities traditionally entrusted to elected school boards, oversight of the Director of Education/CEO, has been weakened. Recent provincial changes mean that elected trustees can no longer remove a board CEO without the written approval of the Minister of Education. At the same time, the government has proposed requiring CEOs to review and confirm trustee motions and board decisions before they take effect. Together, these changes further blur the distinction between governance and administration while reducing the independence of locally elected trustees. While trustees retain responsibilities, they possess considerably less authority than their predecessors did even a generation ago.
Ultimately, the progressive transfer of authority from locally elected trustees to the provincial government is the primary reason I have decided not to seek another term. I entered public education governance believing that trustees played an essential role in local democracy. I leave convinced that the position has been stripped of much of the autonomy necessary to make that democratic role meaningful. The ongoing provincial supervision of the TVDSB, which has left elected trustees with no governance role whatsoever, only reinforced that conclusion.
There is one final reason behind my decision. Before becoming a trustee, I spent nearly fifteen years as a professor in higher education. At the heart of that work was a commitment to academic freedom, open inquiry, and respectful debate. Universities are far from perfect institutions, but they generally recognize that disagreement is not a problem to be avoided. Rather, it is often through disagreement, questioning, and the testing of ideas that individuals and institutions learn, grow, and improve.
I found the culture of school board governance very different. Under the Education Act, the Chair serves as the official spokesperson for the board, limiting how individual trustees can communicate publicly about board business. Formal procedures, including Robert's Rules of Order, also shape and constrain discussion within board meetings. While these rules serve important governance purposes, I often found them at odds with the open and robust exchange of ideas that I had experienced throughout my academic career.
Over time, I became increasingly uncomfortable in a culture that, in my experience, often prioritized consensus over genuine debate. Throughout my academic career, I taught students that learning requires a willingness to embrace uncertainty, discomfort, and disagreement. New understanding emerges when we challenge one another's assumptions and engage thoughtfully with competing ideas. Too often, however, I felt that dissent within the boardroom was viewed as something to be managed rather than something to be explored and valued. Combined with the governance and structural concerns outlined above, this made it difficult for me to be the kind of trustee I aspired to be and ultimately contributed to my decision not to seek re-election.
Serving as a trustee has been an honour. I am grateful to the thousands of residents who placed their trust in me and gave me the opportunity to represent them. I remain deeply committed to public education and to the students, families, educators, and staff who make our schools vibrant places of learning. However, after considerable reflection, I have concluded that I can make a greater contribution to public education and public life outside the current system of school board governance. For that reason, I have made the difficult decision not to seek re-election as a school board trustee.
