Education: 1)Ontario takes control of eighth school board, citing mismanagement; 2)Students protest cuts to amount of OSAP grants they can receive; 3) (Updated) Ontario teacher, education worker unions call for contract talks to start early; 4)(Updated) Ontario teacher, education worker unions call for contract talks to start early
1)Ontario takes control of eighth school board, citing mismanagement
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Allison Jones, March 5, 2026.
Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra speaking at a school in Ottawa, Dec. 5, 2025, during an announcement on school board oversight.
Ontario’s education minister has placed an eighth school board under supervision due to what he calls significant governance issues.
Paul Calandra put the York Catholic District School Board on notice in late January that he would place it under supervision if it did not “appropriately respond” to pressing concerns within two weeks.
He says today it is clear the board can’t resolve its challenges on its own and he has appointed a supervisor.
Calandra is also appointing a supervisor at Peel District School Board, which the minister had placed under provisional supervision earlier this year, but naming a supervisor indicates a longer-term provincial takeover.
Calandra has said the York Catholic board has depleted its reserves, refused to submit a “realistic financial recovery plan” and has had seven directors of education in nine years.
Critics have said that Calandra’s moves to take over school boards and sideline trustees erodes local democracy, and they say boards are in dire financial shape because provincial funding is not keeping up with increasing needs or inflation.
2)Students protest cuts to amount of OSAP grants they can receive
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Allison Jones, March 4, 2026.
Hundreds of Ontario post-secondary students and supporters are taking to the lawn of the legislature today to protest cuts to financial assistance grants.
Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn announced last month that the province is giving the post-secondary institutions a long-sought funding boost, while also lifting a seven-year tuition fee freeze and drastically scaling back Ontario Student Assistance Program grants in favour of loans.
Canadian Federation of Students’ Ontario chairperson Cyrielle Ngeleka says it will leave many students with high debt loads at a time when cost of living is rising, and education should be a pathway out of precarity, not into it.
The current proportion of OSAP funding is about 85 per cent grants to 15 per cent loans, but starting this fall students will receive a maximum of 25 per cent of their OSAP funding as grants.
Adam Picardo, an urban and regional planning student at Toronto Metropolitan University, says young people should not have to start their professional lives saddled with a mortgage-sized debt.
The government says OSAP funding was becoming “unsustainable,” with spending on grants alone at $1.7 billion last year, a 143 per cent increase since 2020.
3) (Updated) Ontario teacher, education worker unions call for contract talks to start early
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Allison Jones, March 2, 2026
Contracts for Ontario’s teachers and education workers expire at the end of this summer and their union leaders are calling on the education minister to start the bargaining process early, saying issues such as class sizes need to be urgently addressed.
The union presidents said Monday in a joint statement that they want to start negotiations early as a way to ensure stability in classrooms and boost student success.
It is a practical, responsible step, said Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation president Martha Hradowy.
“It gives everybody the time and space needed for meaningful discussions focused on solutions, like smaller class sizes and better learning conditions,” she said in an interview.
“We have to talk about recruitment and retention strategies for both teaching and education workers. We need, obviously, staffing investments across the full school team and quite frankly, improved health and safety supports and better education special education supports.”
The unions say they want Education Minister Paul Calandra to use his authority to issue a regulation allowing negotiations to start up to 180 days before the current collective agreements expire on Aug. 31, which means the process could start as early as this week.
But Calandra’s office said filing for notice to bargain 90 days before contract expiry, as is set out in the Labour Relations Act, would provide enough time “to get to a fair and reasonable agreement prior to the expiry.”
The last round of education bargaining was lengthy and included a strike by education workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, closing schools for two days.
That job action ended after the government promised to repeal a law that imposed contracts on CUPE members, banned them from striking and used the notwithstanding clause to allow the override of certain Charter rights.
Calandra has signalled that he will announce a major school board governance shakeup soon, including possibly all but eliminating the role of trustees. The timing of that may well intersect with bargaining, said Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario president David Mastin.
“If the government is successful in eliminating parent voice in democracy, in public education at the local level, that’s going to have a profound impact on public education moving forward,” he said in an interview.
“It will also have a profound impact on bargaining, because trustees are integral to the bargaining process, both at the central and the local level.”
Bargaining priorities for ETFO will include compensation, recruitment and retention strategies, and class sizes, Mastin said.
OSSTF, meanwhile, will also be focusing on class sizes, said Hradowy, particularly as it relates to destreaming. The province eliminated the need for students to choose between applied and academic streams in Grade 9 and Hradowy said that introduced a lot of complexity into those classes that teachers could handle more easily if class sizes were smaller.
“When the government introduced destreaming just after the pandemic, the supports, investments and professional development did not come with that implementation,” she said.
“We want an opportunity to sit down with the government and talk about what it means to implement destreaming appropriately. If the policy goal is equity, then the funding and staffing have to match it.”
NDP education critic Chandra Pasma said early bargaining gives all sides an opportunity to work together to reach a fair deal.
“If the government gives the green light for early negotiations, it allows both sides to bargain in good faith and focus on what matters most: student outcomes, safe classrooms, and a strong public education system,” she wrote in a statement.
4)(Updated) Ontario teacher, education worker unions call for contract talks to start early
Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press
By Allison Jones, March 2, 2026
Contracts for Ontario’s teachers and education workers expire at the end of this summer and their union leaders are calling on the education minister to start the bargaining process early, saying issues such as class sizes need to be urgently addressed.
The union presidents said Monday in a joint statement that they want to start negotiations early as a way to ensure stability in classrooms and boost student success.
It is a practical, responsible step, said Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation president Martha Hradowy.
“It gives everybody the time and space needed for meaningful discussions focused on solutions, like smaller class sizes and better learning conditions,” she said in an interview.
“We have to talk about recruitment and retention strategies for both teaching and education workers. We need, obviously, staffing investments across the full school team and quite frankly, improved health and safety supports and better education special education supports.”
The unions say they want Education Minister Paul Calandra to use his authority to issue a regulation allowing negotiations to start up to 180 days before the current collective agreements expire on Aug. 31, which means the process could start as early as this week.
But Calandra’s office said filing for notice to bargain 90 days before contract expiry, as is set out in the Labour Relations Act, would provide enough time “to get to a fair and reasonable agreement prior to the expiry.”
The last round of education bargaining was lengthy and included a strike by education workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, closing schools for two days.
That job action ended after the government promised to repeal a law that imposed contracts on CUPE members, banned them from striking and used the notwithstanding clause to allow the override of certain Charter rights.
Calandra has signalled that he will announce a major school board governance shakeup soon, including possibly all but eliminating the role of trustees. The timing of that may well intersect with bargaining, said Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario president David Mastin.
“If the government is successful in eliminating parent voice in democracy, in public education at the local level, that’s going to have a profound impact on public education moving forward,” he said in an interview.
“It will also have a profound impact on bargaining, because trustees are integral to the bargaining process, both at the central and the local level.”
Bargaining priorities for ETFO will include compensation, recruitment and retention strategies, and class sizes, Mastin said.
OSSTF, meanwhile, will also be focusing on class sizes, said Hradowy, particularly as it relates to destreaming. The province eliminated the need for students to choose between applied and academic streams in Grade 9 and Hradowy said that introduced a lot of complexity into those classes that teachers could handle more easily if class sizes were smaller.
“When the government introduced destreaming just after the pandemic, the supports, investments and professional development did not come with that implementation,” she said.
“We want an opportunity to sit down with the government and talk about what it means to implement destreaming appropriately. If the policy goal is equity, then the funding and staffing have to match it.”
NDP education critic Chandra Pasma said early bargaining gives all sides an opportunity to work together to reach a fair deal.
“If the government gives the green light for early negotiations, it allows both sides to bargain in good faith and focus on what matters most: student outcomes, safe classrooms, and a strong public education system,” she wrote in a statement.