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How odd it is to walk down these empty hallways. For the past 30 years, I’ve only visited them in dreams – and nightmares.

Vaughan Road Academy, my old high school, is dying. In a month’s time it will be dead, the victim of declining enrolment (there are 200 students in a school that could hold five times that number.) Its demise can be attributed, depending on who you ask, to changing demographics, neoliberal forces in public education, racial and class divisions or the school’s failure to adapt to a city that constantly shapeshifts around it. In any case, dead at the age of 90. Causes of death: various.

The school is located in a neighbourhood lacking famous landmarks, unless you count the junction of Vaughan Road and Oakwood Avenue. One afternoon, I walk through the freshly painted front doors, turn left, then right – the school was built over the years in the shape of a triangle – and enter the cafeteria, also freshly painted. The piano was recently tuned. This flurry of effort suggests makeup applied to the face of a corpse, a bit of lipstick and blush so the mourners won’t be frightened.

The final commencement ceremony isn’t until June 23, but there will be a wake (officially a celebration) for the school today. Some of its most famous alumni may even show up – the actors and writers and Nobel winners, possibly even Drake, although this is whispered without much hope. Imagine what a party it would be if Drizzy showed up, five years after he finally graduated, at 25, from the school’s Interact program for elite performers and athletes. The school could die happy.

Ten days before the farewell party, Vaughan is as quiet as a graveyard. It’s 4 p.m. In my day, in the eighties, the hallways would have been crammed with girls in Cyndi Lauper ponytails and boys armoured in layers of Polo cologne. Each of us shouting, listening to a Walkman, heading off to band or football or drama or yearbook or to have a smoke by the smokestack or make out in the parking lot. There would have been life – too much of it, sometimes, when you were 16.

You could reliably call “Tony!” or “Maria!” down the hall and see half the kids turn. The little houses that fed the school were filled mostly with working-class Italian families who had not yet escaped to Maple or Woodbridge. There were also some Greeks and Portuguese, quite a few kids whose parents had come from the Caribbean, plus a smattering of Chinese and Jewish kids. That ethnic profile would change over the next 30 years. The city changed, too, along with our ideas about educating our children.

I highly recommend a visit to your old high school; it is worth at least five trips to the therapist’s office. Memories return unbidden: I got stoned in that stairwell, and in that classroom the geography teacher told me I was going to hell in a handcart. He was right, of course, although at the time I had to look up what handcart meant.

There were about 1,000 students in my day. The 200 who are there now all have to go to new schools next year, except, of course, for the ones who are graduating. The school suffered from empty-restaurant syndrome: How often have you walked past a restaurant and, seeing no one in it, hurried along? We are human. We want to be part of the pack. More to the point, we want our children to be part of the pack – preferably at the head.

When my brothers and sister and I attended, the school was called Vaughan Road Collegiate Institute – and it was pretty damned impressive, with a swimming pool, two gyms and a 700-seat auditorium (where I spent most of my five years, writing and acting in plays). In the 1970s, the school was so full that portables filled the parking lot. But by the late 1980s, with the extension of public funding to Catholic high schools, enrolment at Vaughan dropped.

The neighbourhood, now known as Oakwood Village, changed and developed a bad reputation (the average household income is $46,000, slightly below the city average of $52,000, but, like all parts of the city, it’s gentrifying). “It’s rough,” people would whisper about the area. “Sketchy.” These were code words for things Torontonians were too racially sensitive to say. But you can’t talk about what’s happening to Vaughan Road Academy and, by extension, other community schools in low-income neighbourhoods without talking about race and class.

“You used to hear that people would say, ‘It’s a black school,’” said Elizabeth Cinello, a Vaughan alumnus who is part of the neighbourhood group that fought hard to keep the school open. (The Toronto District School Board announced the school would close in December, 2016, although the building will be kept as a core asset and, with hope, will be turned into a community hub.)

For Ms. Cinello, the issue of “optional attendance,” which lets high-school students choose far-off schools for their specialized programming, creates two-tier education that pushes low-income kids further to the margins. Even if their kids are accepted at a specialized arts, math or business high school, financially strapped parents usually can’t afford to drive them across town or pay for transit. When better-off kids choose a boutique program across town, the local school loses numbers, then funding. Finally, it cuts its programming, which means it can’t attract new students. “It’s a death spiral,” Ms. Cinello said.

Vaughan did try to change. It sprouted fancy new petals to tantalize new learner bees. As the number of young children in the neighbourhood dropped, the school tried to extend its reach across the city. In 1985, it launched Interact, the program that produced Drake, Ellen Page and Sarah Gadon. In 1997, the school got a full-body makeover and became Vaughan Road Academy. Now it had uniforms and, more important, the International Baccalaureate program.

That program “was meant to capture Jewish kids from Cedarvale,” said Jason Kunin, who has taught at Vaughan for 17 years. (Cedarvale is the affluent neighbourhood directly northeast of the school.) Mr. Kunin thought the first couple of years of the IB program were alarming: “It was like apartheid. You’d walk into the IB program and it was 90-per-cent white. You’d walk into the mainstream classrooms and it was the rest of the world.”

That has changed, he said, with the streams becoming more heterogeneous. But Mr. Kunin, who is busy making videos for Vaughan’s farewell, is worried about the long-term effects of parents trying to get their kids into a handful of oversubscribed schools: “It’s not bringing us together. It’s tearing us apart. It’s isolating us into class and race silos.”

Last October, the York Guardian community newspaper situated the issue bluntly under a headline that read: “Racial segregation blamed for possible closure of Vaughan Road Academy.” The story revealed the rising tensions at a community meeting where one parent claimed the closing “had nothing to do with programming, but everything to do with race and class.” Another parent shot back: “I resent the insinuation.” (I wasn’t there, but it seems like the most Toronto meeting imaginable. I can hear the conversation chasing its tail long into the night: “We just want to send our kids to the best school. … Yeah, well, so do I!”)

These tensions have not escaped the view of Vaughan’s students, few though they are. “A lot of kids in more affluent areas gravitate toward Forest Hill or Northern [Secondary School] because they see those as schools where more affluent kids go,” said Drew Barot, 17, a Grade 12 student and president of the student council at Vaughan.

It’s fair to say Drew loves Vaughan. He loves it so much that he commutes an hour and 25 minutes each way to school from his home in Thornhill. It’s also fair to say he is more successful academically than I ever was: He just placed second in an international business competition for high-school students and he’s now deciding whether to go to the London School of Economics or the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario.

The thing he likes – that everyone at the school likes, suggesting the camaraderie of a lifeboat – is that proximity has fostered affection. The dozen teachers are close to the kids. “They really go the extra mile for us,” Drew said. The teachers feel they are in the big-city equivalent of a one-room schoolhouse: “It’s like a little village here,” Mr. Kunin said. “When I come to work, I don’t feel like I’m just teaching. I feel like I’m giving back to the community.”

I recognize that feeling. There were teachers at Vaughan who changed me and who I will never forget. As I walk the quiet corridors, I can see them standing at the front of the empty classrooms. Mr. Cameron, who loved Shakespeare and did not cringe at our pronunciation. Mrs. Allen, who taught us history but more importantly treated us like adults and opened our minds. One day, I’m talking to my high-school friend Tony, and he reminds me that once we’d been drinking wine before history class. Mrs. Allen, instead of suspending us, wrinkled her nose and said: “If you’re going to show up drunk in my classroom, at least open the windows.”

I’d forgotten that. Maybe I drank more than I remembered. Or maybe it was just too much, those years, too much of everything. The memories are dark and light, clouds across the sun. I remember feeling like an outsider, but also moments of belonging that were almost painfully intense. I ask Tony: “Were we happy then? Do you even remember?” He sighs. “I don’t know. Maybe some days. I was a walking Morrissey song.”

I wander through the empty halls, seeing things I’d never noticed. Why had I never known that I had gone to the same school as Al Waxman and a couple of Nobel laureates? How had I never noticed that, among the dozens of alumni who had died in the Second World War, one was a woman?

And finally, I learn the school’s motto, In Medium Quaesita Reponunt, which translates as: “Through study they restore community.” Given the death knell in the distance, that seems more like a rebuke than a lesson.

ELIZABETH RENZETTI  THE GLOBE AND MAIL MAY 27, 2017 

Community to ask TDSB to stop plans to close Vaughan Road Academy

Public will weigh in on series of school reorganizations and possible closures causing anxiety for kids and parents

Photo:    Sue Sneyd and her two boys Malcolm, 8, left, and Oscar, 10, are among those eager to keep Vaughan Road Academy open. Sneyd’s boys hope to attend the school, which is slated to close for good next June.

Vaughan Road Academy is more than a school to Sue Sneyd.

Her children, Oscar 10, and Malcolm, 8, went to the daycare on the premises of the Toronto high school, and still attend after-school care there.

They learned to swim in the pool, and they can see the playing field out their front windows.

Their great-grandfather taught and coached football at Vaughan Road. It’s where the boys figured they’d be teenaged students one day.

But in the last six months the family has been adjusting to a new reality — news that the 90-year-old school may close for good next June, which a Toronto District School Board staff report recommended this fall as a result of low enrolment.

“I’m a parent whose kids apparently won’t be going to Vaughan Road Academy,” says Sneyd. “I’m sad about it.”

She’s also part of an active neighbourhood group arguing that if the school does close, the board must keep the property and find partners to create a “vibrant community space” that could provide such services as health care, child care, fitness and teen programs which are desperately needed in the area.

On Wednesday, TDSB trustees will hear a parade of parents, students, alumni and others present their arguments about the fate of the high school — which superstar musician Drake once attended.

What happens to Vaughan Road is the most contentious piece of the five reviews of school clusters that are in various stages and will be on the table at the board this week.

In the next six years, more than 100 schools face possible closing or boundary changes as the board, under pressure from the province to sell assets and generate revenue and facing a $3.5-billion repair backlog, tries to reconcile its budget with the contentious and emotional issue of closing schools that are at the heart of neighbourhoods.

“This whole process throws the entire community into chaos,” says Elizabeth Cinello, who graduated from Vaughan Road almost 40 years ago and lives in the area.

Cinello plans to ask trustees to delay their Dec. 7 vote on whether to close the school, and at the very least let the current students stay until they graduate.

She and others opposed to the plan blame years of neglect from the board and the policy of optional attendance which allows students from the catchment area to travel further afield to schools like Forest Hill Collegiate, which are above capacity while Vaughan Road is only about 20 per cent full.

They say the decline in attendance led to even less investment in programming or facilities, which perpetuated the problem and now leaves teens who want to attend a school near home facing the prospect of having to go elsewhere.

Trustee Marit Stiles, whose ward is south of the school, will be among the trustees who she says “are going to be listening very carefully” to delegates on Wednesday. She stresses that while a staff report recommended closing the school, the decision has not been made.

If the school is slated for closure, the next step is for the board to determine what happens to the land, a process that would begin in the new year.

Sneyd and others argue that developing it as a community hub would benefit the neighbourhood and also safeguard the space in case demographics shift and there is a need for more high school space down the road, which some predict will happen in line with increased development already taking place.

Stiles notes that needs can change quickly and that some schools being considered for closure as recently as a couple of years ago are now growing again.

Urban planning expert Mitchell Kosny says while sometimes tough decisions have to be made, school boards and governments have a responsibility to do what they can to retain school assets for communities.

Schools are “the bricks and mortar that hold neighbourhoods together,” says Kosny, associate director of Ryerson’s school of urban and regional planning.

He says like roads and parks, “I don’t think they are commodities you liquidate, I really believe they are public assets.”

And once they are gone, he cautions, you can’t get them back.

Photo: (ANDREW FRANCIS WALLACE / TORONTO STAR)

By ANDREA GORDON   thestar.com  Education Reporter

Wed., Nov. 16, 2016

Its average of $118 per elementary student in school-generated funds was the lowest of the 10 English-language boards in the Greater Toronto Area, according to 2012-13 data obtained by the Star through a freedom of information request.

The York Region Catholic board raised the highest amount — an average of $358 per elementary student.

For some educators, the comparison is just another indicator of a growing poverty crisis in Toronto, where 60 per cent of the city’s census tracts could fall below the poverty line by 2025, according to a 2010 report by University of Toronto professor David Hulchanski.

“We’re starting to face that in our lives right now,” says Vicky Branco, superintendent of the TDSB’s Model Schools for Inner Cities program, which provides extra funding for the board’s 150 neediest schools.

“We can tell you exactly what schools are faced with serious poverty,” she says, “where we desperately need to put in nutrition programs and parents can’t afford to pay the very minimal $2 or $5 a month to support the snack program.”

The money being raised at the school level doesn’t come from provincial government funding; instead, it comes into school bank accounts from a wide variety of sources, including parents who pay extra for programming and trips, or from cafeteria sales, Scholastic book sales and spring fairs or fun days.

What it goes back out to pay for — enriched programming such as scientists in the school, music, theatre and arts programming, gym equipment, computers, playgrounds and outings — is the difference, say critics, between have and have-not schools. Or in this case, boards.

This is the first time the Star has done a comparison of all 10 English boards in the GTA. The data shows that at the elementary level, the region’s Catholic boards, save one, are at the top.

The TDSB has its share of schools in wealthy areas, but there is no other English board in the GTA that comes close to the Toronto board’s proportion of have-not schools.

Nearly 60 per cent of elementary schools in the Toronto public board don’t bring in $100 per kid.

In the other boards, nearly 100 per cent of schools do.

The $8-million Model Schools program, which Branco says has garnered international interest for its success, is funded by the board to help level the playing field between have and have-not schools.

But there are still specific marginalized groups that need more support, who aren’t reaching achievement goals set by the board, says Branco. The board needs “intentional funding to the schools that are affected by poverty,” she says.

The model school money covers a laundry list of items, including in-school dental and eye clinics, summer school and a limited number of iPads. About half of it goes to boosting staff, including coaches and community support workers, to increase student achievement and parent engagement.

But it’s typically not used for enrichment, computers, library books or even team uniforms.

“If a school gets to fundraise and pay for that extra program, that’s where the inequities come in,” says Branco. “If a school fundraises $30,000 a year, they can say we’re giving every classroom $2,000. We can say we want Scientists in the School and we’ll pay for it … or we’ll pay for the ukuleles for Grade 3.

“That’s when you get to the inequities, because really, model schools have to worry about nutrition before they worry about the ukuleles.”

David Crichton, principal of Rose Avenue public school in St. James Town, says his school receives $28,000 from the board as a model school, but it’s not enough.

“I know that the affluent schools are able to raise significant amounts of money, which provides supports in classrooms and opportunity for kids that schools such as mine do not have,” Crichton says.

Instead, he works hard to get company and corporate donations, without which he says his school “would be hurting.”

Rose Avenue gets an annual grant of $50,000 from Manulife, which has paid for arts programming — murals, wire sculpture, storytelling and music — for the past six years. Crichton has negotiated tickets from Young Players Theatre for a third of the standard price. And his school pairs up with private school Branksome Hall as part of the Leacock Foundation’s Circle of Hope. Students from the Rosedale school come to Rose Avenue to tutor, run a free March break program and a summer school for 75 kids.

“I would say the overwhelming majority of schools don’t have that,” says Crichton, who has worked at three schools in the downtown core, including Rose Avenue. At all three, “raising money was always a huge challenge.

“We would kill ourselves and maybe raise a couple of thousand dollars,” he says, “whereas at Jackman Avenue public school they’d have their annual fun fair and raise $30,000, $40,000 or even $50,000.”

In 2012-13, Jackman, which is in Riverdale, actually raised $174,822.00 in donations; a further $30,000 went through the school bank account for excursions and so on. Meanwhile, the Vocal Music Academy at Ryerson Community School, on the other side of town, had zero.

There is also growing awareness in the TDSB that even schools above the model school cutoff are “really struggling.” Right now, only the 150 neediest get funding.

“We all get $14,000 to $30,000,” says Crichton. “But if you’re above the 150 you get nothing. So those are parents who, also for the most part, can’t raise any money. And they’re not considered inner city, so they get virtually no corporations or foundations giving them money.”

The board has recognized the need and is trying to scale up the Model Schools program to the next 100 schools on the TDSB’s Learning Opportunities Index, which rates schools according to need, one being the highest.

That move would mean that more than half the board’s schools are considered at risk.

“In the 450 schools that we have, is it correct to think that 250 are really in need?” asks Branco. “Absolutely. But we don’t have enough money. Eight million dollars is hard to spread across 250 schools. It’s hard to spread across 150.”

The $8 million in model school funding, which the board takes from a $144-million Learning Opportunities Grant from the province, has stayed the same for the past eight years despite the addition of 25 schools to the list each year.

The TDSB has been criticized in the past for not using all of the grant to help children at risk. Boards receive the money based on the socio-economic need and achievement of its students.

“That’s the Catch-22,” says Branco, who was principal of the first model school, Firgrove P.S., in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood. “We generate the $140 million in the Toronto District school budget for it because we have the demographics.

“But unfortunately, due to the needs and the deficit in our buildings and all of our schools, we don’t have the ability to spend all of that money on the demographics that it’s generated for.”

Sheila Cary-Meagher, an outspoken trustee who is in her last term, says the grant is being used to “cover utilities and anything else that comes up,” because it’s “pretty much the only slush fund” the board can draw from to cover its costs, she says.

“So there’s $144 million there. It should be used for kids who are underprivileged, but instead it’s being used for heat.”

In the past, board staff have denied that this is the case. Staff presented a report to trustees last March accounting for how the Learning Opportunities Grant of $144,355,000 was spent. A motion by Cary-Meagher to refer the report to the Inner City and Equity Policy Advisory Committees for further review was voted down.

By PATTY WINSANews reporter

TheStar.com  Sat., Sept. 3, 2016

See the final results here  The runner up candidate, Jack Wang who ran on an anti Health curriculum platform received just over 15% of votes cast.

CPE comment in letter to Star editor:      To ensure a healthy learning environment, let alone a healthy democracy, funding of school boards such as the TDSB must be based on the actual needs of students. Regretfully this has not been the case since the Mike Harris cutbacks. Shockingly, at present Ontario spends the lowest rate in Canada on public education.

Recommendation 1: That the Minister of Education immediately take steps to appoint a supervisor to work collaboratively with the board of trustees, the director of education and senior staff to implement the recommendations of this report.

Recommendations Regarding the Board of Trustees

Recommendation 2: That the board of trustees clarify and clearly communicate throughout the board and the community the roles and responsibilities of trustees and of the board of trustees in accordance with legislation and good governance practices.

Recommendation 3: That trustees be required to participate in ongoing professional development throughout their term of office and that in the future all trustees be required to participate in comprehensive governance orientation immediately after taking office.

Recommendation 4: That the board of trustees and the ministry review trustee professional development supports to ensure there are appropriate supports for trustees, including student trustees, to fulfil their role.

Recommendation 5: That the board of trustees engage in regular board self-assessments and measure its performance in relation to the goals set out in a redeveloped and realistic board multi-year strategic plan. As a transition measure, the board self-assessment should be conducted with the assistance of a third party.

Recommendation 6: That trustees serve a maximum of three consecutive terms of office.

Recommendation 7: That the board of trustees develop appropriate criteria for the skills and experience required of an effective chair, including but not limited to governance experience and training, conflict-management and consensus-building skills, and demonstrated experience working on city-wide and/or board-wide issues.

Recommendation 8: That an annual assessment of the chair is undertaken by the board of trustees to measure the chair’s performance in relation to his or her duties and responsibilities as set out in legislation and board policy and in accordance with good governance practices.

Recommendation 9: That the board of trustees expeditiously establish a mandate and structure for the two or more Education Centres, with particular attention to clarity about the roles and responsibilities of the trustees, executive superintendents, and school superintendents in these centres, as outlined in the panel’s report. (Appendix C shows a model of this structure with three Education Centres, for illustrative purposes.)

Recommendations Regarding Accountability and Transparency

Recommendation 10: That the board of trustees establish and adequately staff offices for an integrity officer and ombudsman, reporting to the board of trustees. Further, that the board adequately staff its Human Rights Office, and that the human rights officer report directly to the director of education. The board should establish and communicate across the organization and within the community clear roles, responsibilities and accountabilities for each office, and provide that all three officers annually report their activities publicly through the board of trustees.

Recommendation 11: That the role of the secretary of the board be separated from the role of the director of education, and that the board hire a person with the requisite governance skills and experience to be the secretary of the board, and who will report to the board of trustees.

Recommendation 12: That there be greater transparency in how members of the senior administrative team are selected throughout the organization, including appropriate job descriptions and consistent processes for responding to job postings, as well as clearly communicated policies that include principles and strategies for performance evaluation at all levels of the organization.

Recommendations Regarding the Position of Director of Education

Recommendation 13: That the board of trustees work to expeditiously review and clarify the roles and responsibilities of the director of education, board secretary and associate directors to reflect the recommendations in this report.

Recommendation 14: That the qualifications for the director of education be broadened to permit candidates who have equivalent academic qualifications from other jurisdictions to be eligible for the position, and that qualifications also include experience in areas of business management, finance and governance.

Recommendations Regarding Parent and Community Outreach

Recommendation 15: That the board restructure its administrative organization to create two or more local Education Centres staffed by not less than one school superintendent for every 20 schools. The Education Centres will conduct all business relating to the supervision of the smaller clusters of schools assigned to each school superintendent. (Appendix Cshows a model of this structure with three Education Centres, for illustrative purposes.)

Recommendation 16: That the board expand its use of community outreach workers to assist families to navigate the school system and other community supports for their children. The outreach workers will be hired by the school board and be employees of the board.

Recommendations Regarding Student Trustees and Student Leadership

Recommendation 17: That student trustees have a binding vote on matters before the board, with the exception of those matters that are discussed in closed meetings of the board in accordance with the Education Act.

Recommendation 18: That the board consult with student trustees, on behalf of the student body, and receive their recommendations on student trustee election eligibility; improved representative student trustee election process; student trustee representation by geographic areas; student trustee term restructuring; and SuperCouncil representation and communication with Grades 7–12. The board must give consideration to the recommendations and respond in a timely manner.

Recommendations Regarding Governance Restructuring

Recommendation 19: That following a full year’s operation, the supervisor undertake an assessment of the progress made by the board of trustees and board administration and make a recommendation to the Minister as to whether the board of trustees and board administration have met the following key performance indicators; if not, the ministry is to proceed to stage two of the recommendations of the TDSB Governance Advisory Panel.

• Trustee Role Clarification: The board of trustees has clarified and communicated their roles and responsibilities as governors, and has established a plan for their ongoing training and professional development.
• Clarification of Roles and Responsibilities: In the first three months of the work of the supervisor and the director, the roles and responsibilities of the following senior staff positions have been reviewed and clarified: director of education, board secretary and associate directors.
• Accountability and Transparency: In addition to the integrity commissioner position the TDSB has recently established, create and staff the Office of the Ombudsman, and adequately staff the Human Rights Office.
• Administrative Reorganization: The mandate and structure of Education Centres has been established, with particular attention to clarity on the roles and responsibilities of executive superintendents and school superintendents. The Education Centres are staffed by an expanded cohort of school superintendents.
• Strengthened Management and Governance: The director has reported to the board of trustees and the supervisor on any outstanding recommendations from previous board audits and reviews that have not yet been fully implemented, and the action and resources required to give full effect: 2012 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report; Ernst & Young LLP 2013 report; and the 2015 Wilson Report.
• Strategic Planning: The board of trustees has reviewed its multi-year plan to support student achievement and well-being, and identified key priorities for annual focus and review, with criteria and timelines for measuring progress.
• Director Performance Appraisal: The board of trustees has established a clear and transparent process for an annual performance appraisal of the director of education, based on the goals set out in the director’s Annual Plan.
• Board Self-Assessment: The board of trustees has an approved policy in place requiring regular self-assessments as to how it functions and how board members engage in ongoing professional development to enhance their individual and collective capacity to govern effectively.
• Board Policy, By-laws and Procedures: Board policies, by-laws and related procedures have been reviewed to ensure that operational or political ownership of system responsibilities to support student achievement are clearly delineated. The review process should involve broad system and community consultation and two-way communication regarding changes to existing practice.
• Board Meetings: An assessment of agendas of board and committee meetings indicates that the board of trustees is focused on governance issues.
• Student Trustee Engagement: The board has consulted with student trustees and has provided a timely response to their recommendations specific to student trustee election eligibility; improved representative student trustee election process; student trustee representation by geographic areas; student trustee term restructuring; and SuperCouncil representation and communication with Grades 7–12.

Recommendation 20: If stage two is to be implemented, the ministry would take the following action:

• undertake the legislative and regulatory work required to establish two or more independent smaller school boards with a mandatory shared services corporation as outlined in the panel’s report. (Appendix D shows a model of this structure with two boards, for illustrative purposes.)
• determine a timeline for creating the new school boards that takes into consideration the timing of the 2018 municipal and school board elections.

The board, Canada’s largest, can’t help itself without “external support,” Ms. Hall wrote in her report to the province, which was released Friday.

The TDSB, a product of the amalgamation of seven boards in 1998, has an annual operating budget of $3-billion and more than 246,000 students in 600 schools.

The ministry formally released the report just after 8 p.m. Friday, saying it had accidentally been posted earlier in error and the ministry had decided to allow its release “in the interest of being open and transparent.”

The Ministry of Education should appoint an adviser, Ms. Hall recommended. If the board doesn’t show “demonstrable progress” within a year, it should be divided into smaller boards using “ward boundaries, socioeconomic and ethno-racial factors, enrolment and geographic size” as a guide.

The panel also broached the possibility of introducing term limits for trustees.

TDSB Chair Robin Pilkey, an accountant, balked at the suggestion of breaking up the board. “The cost would be unreasonable,” she said in an interview.

Some of the concerns in the report seem left over from previous eras at the board, she said. Half of the 22 trustees are brand-new, elected last fall, including Ms. Pilkey.

Ms. Hall’s 20 recommendations don’t seem to demand “immediate” action, so trustees will begin reviewing them carefully, including cost implications, said Ms. Pilkey.

The former mayor was appointed last March, along with a panel of education and governance experts in Ontario, to examine major structural problems at the root of the TDSB’s history of scandals and complaints from parents, trustees and staff. The panel interviewed more than 550 people, she wrote.

In a statement, Education Minister Liz Sandals said the ministry will release its next steps in the coming days.

“By working together with the TDSB, we will be able to improve governance at the board, and ensure that everyone is focused on student achievement and well-being.”

The panel confirmed what other audits and reviews before it have also suggested – that a “culture of fear” permeates the highest levels of the bureaucracy. It describes how several staffers refused to meet with the panel, explaining that they were concerned that their participation would affect their career advancement. Several who did participate broke out into tears, the report said.

The problems are affecting not only board staff but students, “perpetuating inequities,” the panel found after looking at student achievement data.

“We heard serious concerns about the inequities of access to specialty programs and the lack of resources in schools to support the specific needs of communities,” Ms. Hall wrote.

Last month, former TDSB director Donna Quan stepped down after a rocky tenure. But Ms. Hall wrote that the board’s problems can’t be blamed on any individual.

“It is our view that this culture has developed over many years and under the watch of several directors, board chairs and senior administrators,” said the report.

The past two years have been especially tumultuous for the board: The former chair, ‎Chris Bolton, called in off-duty police officers in March 2014 to control what he called “threatening” behaviour at board meetings; four months later, he suddenly resigned, citing “personal reasons.”

His resignation followed a Globe and Mail report that showed TDSB staff had investigated Mr. Bolton, for allegedly improperly diverting a donation – that was supposed to go to an elementary school – to a charity that Mr. Bolton founded.

Tensions at the board peaked in late 2014 when Mr. Bolton’s replacement as chair, Mari Rutka, wrote to Education Minister Liz Sandals, complaining that Ms. Quan was refusing to provide trustees with a copy of her contract.

The episode led Ms. Sandals to appoint a special investigator, education specialist Margaret Wilson, to review the board. Ms. Wilson’s report paved the way for the comprehensive review conducted by Ms. Hall and the other panel members.

Some of the staff interviewed for the report linked the board’s “dysfunctional culture … to a sense of entitlement and domination that can come with being in the [trustee] position for many years.”

Board staff and trustees told the panel that the board had been effectively divided into an “in-group” and an “out-group” – with the latter being deprived of information necessary to perform their roles.

“Senior staff also noted how information is used by the director and senior administration in a way that favours those who are in the in-group and marginalizes those who are in the out-group. That in-groups and out-groups are perceived to exist within senior administration and elected leadership speaks to the extent of the unhealthy and divisive culture at the TDSB.‎”‎

globe & mail Selena Ross & Greg McArthur Dec 4, 2015 photo Fred Lum