My TDSB newsletter went out this week by mail and I wanted to share some of it here with you. Last year had many highlights, including new playgrounds and improved fields in many of our schools. Looking forward to what the coming school year will bring!
Metro Morning interview on Tuesday, April 14th with Jill Dempsey, on the new changes by the Province to education.
Hit the link here to listen to the interview.
After three consecutive years in the red, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has posted a $31-million surplus for 2025 — more than three times larger than the $7-million surplus it had projected for the year, newly released financial statements show.
But despite the province appointing a supervisor to manage the TDSB, due in part to what education minister Paul Calandra described as years of “mismanagement,” the final surplus was not the result of lower spending.
During the year, the board spent nearly $100 million more than had been planned overall, including millions more spent than had been budgeted on instructional, administrative and school operational and maintenance costs. However, spending in 2025 was about $210 million less than in 2024.
These extra expenses in 2025, however, were accommodated largely by higher-than-anticipated funding from the provincial government. While the board had projected it would receive about $3.2 billion in core educational funding, it actually received about $3.4 billion.
The results come about six months after the province’s new supervisor, Rohit Gupta, took on the role.
TorontoToday contacted the Ministry of Education for comment on the board’s financial performance in 2025, but did not receive a response prior to publication.
Despite Toronto’s population boom over the past decade, the number of students enroled in the city’s public school system has declined since 2019. Now, parents want the school board to try harder to figure out why — and be transparent about what it learns.
Matias De Dovitiis, a Toronto District School Board trustee who has previously run for the NDP, said it was hypocritical of Calandra to publish trustee expenses and not make his own available to scrutiny.
“I would like us to move on, but for the sake of transparency, it would be great (if he released his expenses),” he said.
“If he wants to set a moral standard, that’s amazing. But all of our expenses have to be publicly shared on our websites. If anyone ever wanted to look at my expenses, they could. They should be able to do the same for the minister.”
