Ford government continues education shakeup with new ‘family support offices’

The Ford government will create new offices at every school board to escalate parent and student issues as it continues its major education shakeup.

The province said the first of these offices will open at school boards currently under supervision in January, and will be the first step for parents with complex or contentious issues which their schools cannot solve.

“Student and Family Support Offices will give families clear answers and timely solutions when it comes to their child’s education,” Education Minister Paul Calandra said in a statement.

“We’re going to continue overhauling an outdated school board governance model so that more resources go into classrooms, teachers have better support and students have the best chance to succeed.”

Over the past year, Calandra has led an overhaul of Ontario’s education system, putting five school boards under the control of Queen’s Park-appointed supervisors and launching investigations.

Calandra has said he can’t see ever handing the boards currently under supervision back to trustees.

Currently proposed legislation, which will bypass the committee process, will make it easier for the minister to put more boards under supervision as he weighs abolishing trustees at Ontario’s public boards altogether.

Sidelined trustees, some parents and opposition critics have complained Calandra’s supervisors — who can charge $700,000 and claim $40,000 in expenses over two years —aren’t available to help with student issues.

They’ve argued that trustees acted as locally accountable representatives to help unstick administrative logjams when parents have problems, a role the supervisors are not designed to replace.

“I think the government is removing people who are truly accountable to their local community and replacing them with we don’t know what,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said.

“It really feels like the minister of education doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to address the disaster that he’s created by removing those local voices, that local accountability.”

The province said the new offices would acknowledge receipt of questions within two days and provide a response within five.

The five boards currently under supervision — Dufferin-Peel Catholic, Ottawa-Carleton, Thames Valley, Toronto Catholic and Toronto District School Board — will open their offices in January.

School boards not currently under supervision have been told they must have a plan for their offices by March and open them in September 2026.

— With a file from The Canadian Press