Incremental change is the best way to reform how the Toronto public board is run, and a committee of trustees is recommending just that.
Told by Education Minister Kathleen Wynne to find a way to create a better, more efficient board by the end of May, the Toronto District School Board’s governance committee yesterday decided to ask for more delegation powers as it moves to decentralize decision-making.
The recommendation will go to another committee and then the full board on May 21 for approval.
“Dramatic changes are inherently too risky for kids,” said Trustee Howard Goodman, the committee chair. “When we make dramatic change, odds are we are going to get it wrong.”
His committee rejected de-amalgamation — breaking up into smaller, independent boards — as “harmful to student achievement.”
The board is just now recovering from almost a decade of upheavals that followed amalgamation of Toronto’s old cluster of boards, and it’s better to make any changes slowly, he added.
