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FORUM: Schools struggle under Ford’s supervisor czar (Apr. 2026)

April 7th, 2026 · No Comments

Province handed top $350,000-job to a totally unqualified person 

By Jessica Bell

Last year, the Ford government put eight school boards including the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) under provincial supervision to address so-called financial mismanagement. 

Oversight of the TDSB was taken from elected school board trustees and handed to a supervisor, Rohit Gupta—a finance professional with no direct experience in the classroom. Mr. Gupta earns $350,000 a year.

Have our schools improved since the takeover? No. It’s become worse.

The supervisor has created a climate of decision-making chaos for parents at the TDSB. 

The official way for a parent to raise an issue is to first go to the teacher, then the principal, then the superintendent, and then the trustee. With the trustee removed, it’s become a bit wild west. 

The school community, including our office, regularly reaches out to the supervisor, but he rarely responds. 

Parents on the special education advisory committee and the parent youth advisory committee use their influence to raise issues with TDSB leadership. 

Our office has resorted to repeated phone calls and letters to get a meeting with Ministry of Education officials about the need for renovations at Kensington School. It felt out of place to raise a local issue with staff responsible for overseeing 4316 schools, but there is nowhere else for us to go. 

After public outcry, the TDSB has now established a Family Support Office, tasked with responding to parent enquiries. We don’t know how effective this new office will be.  

The TDSB’s financial troubles remain. Ontario is solely responsible for funding school boards and has failed to provide enough money to boards to pay the salaries and deliver the programs they are legally required to provide. By bringing in a supervisor, the government is pretending to fix a problem entirely of their own making. 

The supervisor is making drastic decisions with no notice or public say. Even learning about these decisions is challenging. The supervisor’s decisions are buried deep in the bowels of the TDSB’s website, sometimes months after the decision has been made. 

I don’t dislike all the supervisor’s decisions, just most of them. Reinstating Barry Sketchley as principal of Rosedale School of the Arts was a populist move, but the cuts are terrible.

The supervisor has increased class sizes for special education, resulting in Beverley school in Baldwin Village losing a teacher, and Lucy McCormick Senior School in the Junction losing two teachers. 

Kids who attend these schools need extra care. They cannot cope in a regular school. Many children have serious developmental issues, including Down’s syndrome, autism, and complex medical conditions. Parents describe these schools as lifelines. 

The supervisor has removed the maximum class cap of 32 kids for Grades 4 to 8, meaning very large classes are coming to some classrooms in September. 

Class sizes are already very large. I interviewed teachers at King Edward School to get an understanding of what’s going on in our schools, and it’s not great. Some classes have 33 students in classes with not enough desks or chairs. There is just one educational assistant for the entire school. This is typical, not exceptional.

We keep seeing signs that the Ford government “supervised” TDSB and TCDSB plan to sell off schools to developers. The TDSB has directed Eastdale Collegiate Institute and Heydon Park Secondary School to shut off enrollment for incoming students in Grade 9 and beyond, prompting fears of closure. 

Toronto City Council currently opposes the inclusion of school properties in housing redevelopment plans and in mid-December directed city staff to exclude them from its Avenues Policy, which is designed to encourage new mid-rise housing. 

The province-led TDSB and the TCDSB are now going to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) to contest the city’s move to protect school properties from development.  This is another u-turn for the Ford government who had previously prohibited such closures but now that they are in direct charge of the boards, they see a development opportunity.Selling a property for development is a foolish choice in a city growing as quickly as ours, because odds are, we will eventually need these school properties again. Surplus properties should be offered to other school boards or the city to keep the land public, not sold off in a one-off fire sale.

My goal is to ensure every one of these kids can reach their full potential in safe and welcoming classrooms. We need well-run, accountable, and democratic school boards, and more highly qualified educators in the classroom, not cuts and poor decisions from up high.

I will continue to advocate with parents, students, and educators to protect and improve our public school system. Please contact our office if you have a story that you would like me to raise with the Conservative government, or if you need assistance. 

Jessica Bell is the MPP for University-Rosedale and the Shadow Minister for Finance and the Treasury Board. You can reach her office at jbell-co@ndp.on.ca or 416-535-7206.

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Tags: Annex · Columns · Opinion

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