Toronto Catholic District School Board
The Toronto Catholic District School Board is an English-language public-separate school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada, headquartered in North York. It is one of the two English boards of education in the City of Toronto, serving the former municipalities of Scarborough, North York, York, East York, Old Toronto and Etobicoke. With 91,000 students, the TCDSB is one of the largest school boards in Canada, and is the largest publicly funded Catholic school board in the world. Until 1998, it was known as the Metropolitan Separate School Board as an anglophone and francophone separate school district.
History
On April 2, 1953, the Metropolitan Separate School Board, officially known as the Metropolitan Toronto Roman Catholic Separate School Board was formed as the governing body of all publicly funded Roman Catholic schools in Toronto through the merger of several separate boards in Metro Toronto. The merger was passed through Bill 37, the Metropolitan Separate School Board Act.At its peak, the board operated 185 anglophone and 6 francophone elementary schools and 41 anglophone and 1 francophone secondary schools as of 1990 with 100,000 students attended all MSSB schools. The MSSB took over seven high schools transferred from the Metropolitan Toronto School Board in 1988, with one of them being a francophone Catholic high school, the institution that has been lost since 1968. The MSSB was the largest school board in Canada at the time.
In 1997, as a result of Bill 104, the Fewer School Boards Act, the boards were reorganized resulting in the separation of English and French language schools. The MSSB became known as English-language Separate District School Board No. 40 and renamed itself to the Toronto Catholic District School Board in 1999 while the former Section de langue française unit became part of the new French-language Separate District School Board No. 64 which later became Conseil scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud.
The board headquarters were located on Duke Street, then Jarvis Street, and the MSSB moved its operations in 1964 to 150 Laird Drive, the former headquarters of Durant Motors and later, Imperial Oil. In 1982, the board moved to its current administrative headquarters and offices on 80 Sheppard Avenue East. The school board also had the offices for Section de langue française on Drewry Avenue, opened in 1989 in the former Lewis S. Beattie Secondary School, though it has since been occupied by Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir as its administrative offices.
Organization
The Toronto Catholic District School Board mission statement relies on as "an inclusive learning community uniting home, parish and school and rooted in the love of Christ" that "educates students to grow in grace and knowledge and to lead lives of faith, hope and charity." The vision encourages learning communities of the Board to "transform the world through witness, faith, innovation and action."The school board is governed by 12 elected trustees who serve for a four-year term. Each year one secondary school student is selected to serve on the board as a student trustee. The chair of the board, the vice-chair, and the honorary treasurer are elected at the inaugural meeting of the board, and serve for one year. As of August 2013, Ann Andrachuk serves as chair, and Sal Piccininni serves as vice-chair. Trustees are paid $18,500 a year in salary, and can claim up to $18,000 for expenses. Prior to the 1998 separation of French-language schools, the Metropolitan Separate School Board had three French language seats. The policies of the Board are administered by the Director of Education and designates.
There are more than 91,000 students serving over 195 Catholic schools, and represent close to 475,000 Catholic school supporters in all of Toronto. The TCDSB also has staff consisting of 6,000 teachers, 2,800 support staff, 360 principals and vice principals, and 200 administrators.
In addition, the Board operates standing three committees: the Student Achievement and Well Being, Catholic Education and Human Resources, Corporate Affairs, Strategic Planning and Property, & Governance Framework.
Trustees
As of, the trustee boundaries are aligned with the municipal wards, which was realigned to match with the federal and provincial ward boundaries.| Ward | Trustee | Municipal Ward | Federal and Provincial Riding | TDSB Corresponding Ward | Notes |
| 1 | Joseph Martino | 1 | Etobicoke North | 1 | |
| 2 | Markus De Domenico | 2 | Etobicoke Centre | 2 | |
| 3 | Ida Li Preti | 7 | Humber River-Black Creek | 4 | |
| 4 | Teresa Lubinski | 3, 4 | Etobicoke-Lakeshore Parkdale-High Park | 3, 7 | |
| 5 | Maria Rizzo | 6, 8, 10 | York Centre Eglinton-Lawrence Willowdale | 5, 8, 12 |
|
| 6 | Frank D'Amico | 9 | Davenport | 9 | |
| 7 | Mike Del Grande | 21, 22 | Scarborough CentreScarborough-Agincourt | 17, 20 |
|
| 8 | Garry Tanuan | 23, 25 | Scarborough NorthScarborough-Rouge Park | 21, 22 | |
| 9 | Norm Di Pasquale | 10, 11, 12, 13 | Spadina-Fort York University-Rosedale Toronto-St. Paul's Toronto Centre | 8, 9, 10 | |
| 10 | Daniel Di Giorgio | 13, 14, 18 | Parkdale-High Park Davenport | 7, 9 | |
| 11 | Angela Kennedy | 14, 15, 16, 17, 19 | Toronto-Danforth Don Valley West Don Valley East Don Valley North Beaches-East York | 11, 13, 14, 15, 16 | |
| 12 | Nancy Crawford | 20, 24 | Scarborough Southwest Scarborough-Guildwood | 18, 19 | |
| Student Trustee | Taylor Dallin Kathy Nguyen | --- | --- | --- |
Chairs of the Board
Italics indicate the trustee remains active.- Averell Robinson, Q.C. - 1953–1954; Original chair of the MSSB
- Rev. Msgr. Hugh Callaghan, D.P. - 1954–1955
- Gerard Godin - 1956–1957
- Georges B. Heenan - 1958–1959
- Michael J. Duggan - 1960–1962
- Edward J. Brisbois - 1963–1965
- Dr. John J. Andrachuk - 1966–1967
- Rev. Msgr. Percy H. Johnson, P.H. 1968–1969; School named after him.
- J.A. Fullerton - 1970–1971
- J.A. Marrese - 1972–1974
- Joseph Grittani - 1975–1976
- Rev. E.F. Boehler - 1977–1978
- Bruno M. Suppa - 1979–1980
- Paul J. Duggan - 1981–1982
- Edward T. McMahon - 1983–1984; 1996–1997
- Rev. E.F. Boehler - 1984–1985
- Rev. C. Matthews, S.J. - 1985–1986
- Caroline M. DiGiovanni - 1986–1988
- Michael Lofranco - 1988–1989
- Donald E. Clune - 1989–1992
- Elvira DeMonte - 1992–1994
- Paul B.R. Fernandes - 1994–1996
- Joseph Martino - 1997–1999 - Last chair as MSSB and first chair of the reorganized TCDSB.
- Rose Andrachuk - 1999–2000
- Mike Del Grande - 2000–2001 - Later became city councilor; 2014–2015
- Joseph Carnevale - 2001–2003;
- Oliver Carroll - 2003–2007 - Ousted in early 2009 for conflict of interest charges. Now serves as a teacher for the Toronto District School Board since 2010 and teaches at Scarborough Centre for Alternative Studies from 2012 onwards.
- Catherine LeBlanc-Miller - 2008–2009
- Angela Kennedy - 2009–2010 - later removed by the judge and was later re-elected; 2015–2016
- Ann Andrachuk - 2010-2013
- Jo-Ann Davis - 2013–2014
- Barbara Poplawski - 2017–present
Directors of Education
Current
The current director of education is Rory McGuckin who was appointed in 2017.Past directors
- B. E. Nelligan - 1965–1983
- Berchman Kipp - 1983–1989
- Tony Barone - 1989–1996
- Norm Forma - 1996–1997
- Johanne Stewart - 1997–2001
- Tom Donavan - 2001–2005
- Noel Martin - 2005
- Kevin Kobus - 2005–2007
- Les Nemes - 2007–2009
- Ann Perron - 2009–2011
- Bruce Rodrigues - 2011–2013
- Angela Gauthier - 2013-2017
Charity
School Building Architecture
Like the TDSB-built schools, 70% of the TCDSB stock of school buildings outside of the old City of Toronto were built after World War II and during the 1950s. These are typically Mid-Century modern in style with two to three storey brick facade and large double hung windows albeit from the cross attached. Some are built in Tudor Gothic style ones in the late 1800s.Schools
School bus transportation
The following service providers have been contracted by the school board:- Attridge Transportation
- Dignity Transportation
- First Student Canada
- McCluskey Transportation Services
- Sharp Bus Lines
- Stock Transportation
- Switzer-Carty Transportation
- Toronto Transit Commission
- Wheelchair Accessible Transit
Uniforms
In 1988, the MSSB ruled that public separate high schools are required to wear uniforms. At the time, all of the high schools in Scarborough except for Newman had uniforms. Some trustees anticipated protests from parents and students from Newman.
, all TCDSB elementary students must wear a uniform of a white or navy blue top, and navy blue bottoms. This is enforced in special programs such as the gifted program and ME.
Controversies
Enrolment of non-Catholics
While Catholic high schools are funded by the provincial government, making them open to any students who wish to attend, elementary schools do not have to enroll non-Catholic students. Many argue that the practice of fully funding separate schools exclusively for the Catholic faith is discriminatory to other religions. Supporters of the current Catholic education system point out that it has existed, in one form or another, since Confederation, and that the Constitution Act, 1867 enshrines the right to government-funded religious education to all Catholics. The opposition, however, argues that this is an appeal to tradition, and point to other provinces in Canada which amended the constitution to abolish Catholic school funding. It is up to the school principal whether or not non-Catholics are enrolled.Government funding
Recently, the issue of government funding for religious schools has become a major political issue, with PC Party Leader John Tory supporting an extension of funding to all religious schools, Dalton McGuinty's Liberals and Howard Hampton's NDP supporting the status quo, and Frank de Jong's Greens alone calling for elimination of public funding for all religious schools.Labour issues
The first strikes occurred on April 5–11, 1986 when 6,000 teachers of the Metro Separate School Board went on strike with over 100,000 students affected.From August 2002, the Toronto Catholic elementary teachers were without a contract and imposed work to rule beginning February 2003. With stalled negotiations, the TCDSB officially locked out the teachers on May 16, 2003 and the strike lasted 12 days which left 69,000 students affected. The lockout ended when the Ontario government enacted back-to-work legislation on June 3, 2003.
Conflict arose once again when the TCDSB elementary teachers imposed work to rule once more in 2016.
Trustee spending scandal
The board was embroiled in controversy in May 2008 when a report commissioned by the provincial government uncovered spending abuses by certain trustees, including charges for meals, promotional materials, and prohibited benefits. Provincial supervisor Norbert Hartmann was appointed to oversee administration of the board as a result.Incidents between students and faculty
During a school trip organized by Holy Spirit Catholic School's eighth-grade students, vice principal Stephen Patel threw a shoe at a 14-year-old student Ian Goulbourne in the forehead while on the excursion at Montreal on the school bus on April 24, 2013. Goulborune was taken to the Montreal Children's Hospital to be treated and Patel was sent home the next day on the VIA Rail train on paid leave by the TCDSB while it investigated such incident.A few weeks later, Ferdinando Marrello, a teacher at Monsignor Fraser College has been charged with allegations of assaulting an female student who was grabbed by the throat and punched in the face.
In August 2018, Gerry McGilly, 47-year-old former English teacher at Bishop Allen Academy was sentenced to 2–3 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to luring, making child pornography and sexual exploitation of his students, including three 17-year old victims, dated between 2014 and 2017.
On May 1, 2019, Toronto Police formally charged 35-year-old Justin Iozzo, teacher of Father John Redmond Catholic Secondary School of one count of sexual assault and one count of sexual interference that occurred in December 2016 when a student was assaulted on school property. Iozzo was employed by the Board since 2012 and started his teaching career at Stella Maris and St. John the Evangelist Catholic Schools. However, thirteen days later, Toronto Police arrested 36-year old Brian Ross, a teacher and coach at Senator O'Connor College School, who is facing charges of sexual assault stemming from a string of incidents during the 2011-12 academic year including a 16-year-old female student being assaulted during his 10-year tenure at Marshall McLuhan Catholic Secondary School and another in March 2017.