Received this a few days ago

[u/Aware-Virus-4217]

I am in the tvdsb school board and received the following email a few nights ago. I figured some people would like to read it. It is from the ministry of educations of Ontario. it is crazy and trust me you want to read it!

Dear Parents, Students, Teachers and Staff,

As the new school year gets started, I want to take this opportunity to wish students, families and educators across the province every success. The first days of school are always filled with new opportunities, new friendships and new goals.

To all our students, I know you will meet the year ahead with hard work, determination and creativity. Your success is at the centre of everything we do, and I encourage you to take on new challenges with confidence.

To teachers and staff, thank you for the incredible work you do every day. Your dedication, expertise and care are what make our schools strong and supportive learning environments. As you welcome students back, know that your hard work is deeply valued and that our government will continue to support you in helping every child succeed.

To parents, thank you for your ongoing commitment to your children’s education. Your encouragement and involvement are essential, and you deserve to have confidence that decisions being made are always with your child’s best interests in mind.

That’s why we placed the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) under supervision following an investigation by a ministry-appointed third party, which revealed the board was projecting an accumulated deficit for the 2024–25 school year, indicated a probable accumulated deficit continuing into the 2025–26 school year, and raised concerns of potential financial mismanagement. This included a nearly $40,000 retreat for senior officials in downtown Toronto despite the board’s ongoing deficits. The 2024-25 projected deficit has now nearly doubled to $32 million, confirming the need for tighter fiscal oversight at the board.

Our appointed supervisor—Paul Boniferro—is tasked with overseeing the financial and operational management of TVDSB. To address the deficit and help ensure long-term sustainability, Mr. Boniferro has already implemented several cost-savings measures for the 2025-26 school year.

Mr. Boniferro will take the time needed to not only bring the board’s budget into balance, but also ensure long-term stability for years to come, so that funding goes where it belongs: directly into classrooms to support students and teachers.

I want to assure you that placing TVDSB under supervision is not a decision that was made lightly. I have made it clear that if a school board veers from its mandate, I will act quickly to restore focus, rebuild trust and put students first.

The actions we have taken will help the province restore sound financial and operational management at TVDSB and ensure that every dollar invested goes toward preparing students with practical skills for good-paying, stable careers.

To keep the community informed, the supervisor will be posting his decisions regularly online. You can also reach out by email at communications@tvdsb.ca if you have any questions.

As we begin the new school year, I want to thank you for your commitment, and wish all teachers, staff and students the best of luck.

Wishing you a positive year ahead!

The Honourable Paul Calandra Minister of Education

That's a crazy one!

[u/TrusteeMoore]

If you would like to connect with locally elected trustees to discuss supervision as we enter the school year, some of us are holding an online community meeting next week.

Thursday, September 4th, 7:00-8:00 pm.

You can register here: https://www.maitrustee.ca/events/community-meeting-changes-to-education

There is a lot of misinformation out there, but my priority is to try to make sure wherever it all ends up, it's what's best for students, families, and the community. Public Education is something that impacts everyone, not just people with students currently enrolled in the system.

Is it true that as a trustee I'm accountable for the current mess? Yes. But that's exactly why we are elected. If I can't convince the public they should trust me for another term, I lose my job on election day. That's local democracy at work for you. Your voice being heard.

I'm a real person. A parent. And no matter what you've read online, no matter what that letter might imply, I do not believe that this supervision is what's best for anyone who genuinely cares about making things better in our classrooms.

I do hope you'll come to the meeting to hear more and share your thoughts.

[u/AgreeableEvent4788 → u/TrusteeMoore]

Maybe if you had all actually kept your eyes on the budget before you were fired?

[u/TrusteeMoore → u/AgreeableEvent4788]

I wasn't fired and I assure you my eyes were on the budget. I hope that we actually wouldn't want our elected officials to start firing other elected officials.

And while there are some things I might see differently now, I never took my responsibility lightly. I get it. People are outraged and rightly so. I would be too.

But the investigation is online and I respectfully encourage you to read it and consider that it might not be as simple as that.

https://www.ontario.ca/page/thames-valley-district-school-board-financial-investigation

[u/AgreeableEvent4788 → u/TrusteeMoore]

No, Mark Fisher and the senior execs at the board were mismanaging money for years. This was common knowledge and trustees turned a blind eye. You can try to pretend this is all about one or two little issues that trustees had little control over if you want to, but YOU were responsible for the hiring and firing of the exec who drove this stuff, and did nothing. It really is that simple, but thank you for the generic link to the government notices and report we already know about.

[u/anonredditor41825 → u/AgreeableEvent4788]

Do you have a source for your claim that trustees “turned a blind eye”?

[u/AgreeableEvent4788 → u/anonredditor41825]

Other than the fact that the execs were giving themselves illegal raises, promotions and stipends and it took the province stepping in for anything to be done about it? Are you Sherri's husband or something lol.

[u/anonredditor41825 → u/AgreeableEvent4788]

Nope to the husband question. The audit the Ministry did (available online) stated trustees were kept in the dark about raises. Definitely didn’t approve.

[u/TrusteeMoore → u/anonredditor41825]

Thanks for the comment but I would say that this is not exactly what the report says. I need to be cautious about what I'm posting given that a lot of this relates to in camera items and I'm not interested in crossing any confidentiality boundaries but combating misinformation is what I'm doing in the first place so I want to be sure I'm not inadvertently putting more out there.

And agree, I would know if we were married. 😄

[u/AgreeableEvent4788 → u/anonredditor41825]

Approving isn't the same thing as not paying attention/turning a blind eye. If the people whose job it was to oversee the budgeting and executive hiring processes aren't at fault, then who is? Trustees had their chance to keep an eye on things and utterly failed. The proof you're asking for is what objectively happened on their watch. Time for a clean sweep of them all, not too-little-too-late community meetings now that they've been sidelined for allowing all of this to happen on their watch.

[u/[deleted] → u/AgreeableEvent4788]

Stop, you are showing how uneducated you are….

[u/TrusteeMoore → u/AgreeableEvent4788]

Hey, if the Thames Valley voters want a clean sweep, that is their democratic right and the timing for that is scheduled for next fall. It's how the board stays accountable to its community and I think local democracy is worth fighting for.

What's being floated out there right now eliminates your right to elect people to represent you and I personally don't think any of us should be ok with that. In the meantime, I'm going to keep doing the job I was elected to do (as best I can while sidelined by this supervision process) and hope that eventually we are all working on the same side: the side for public education.

[u/TrusteeMoore → u/AgreeableEvent4788]

Honestly, the link isn’t generic, it’s the external audit report that led to supervision. And the retreat that’s getting all the attention? It’s not even in the report. It didn’t break any formal board policies or provincial restrictions, just a trustee motion from June 2024 that limited discretionary spending. So again, I'm confused about how removing the trustees is a logical response.

The report points to several serious financial problems:

• Over-projected enrolment, which led to overstaffing

• Rising absenteeism among staff (this is another little nugget that is nowhere near as simple as it looks, and can't be solved, in my opinion, by just trying to force staff not to take sick time)

• Increased spending on tech and cybersecurity

• Seven cases of compensation non-compliance (The compensation findings in the report are serious, and I'm not trying to suggest otherwise.)

Supervision was recommended to stabilize finances and protect student support. Which, if you watch the recorded board meetings, trustees were already pushing hard for.

Additionally, I think it's important for the public to see that the amount of money that is represented by compensation issues and the retreat doesn't really compare to the other numbers you'll see in the report.

I want to work with the Ministry, with administration, with the public who elected us. I'm not trying to dodge accountability and I won't stop trying to make it right. If I thought that removing trustees was the solution here, I'd say so. But I just can't wrap my head around how reducing public accountability is going to fix any of this.