Ontario school boards pressured to get back to basics, but will they comply?

Tamara Ugolini
  |   August 03, 2023   |   Be the first to comment

The Ontario government has unveiled the first set of regulations under Bill 98, otherwise known as the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act
that was first announced in April.

The new legislation is intended to increase school board accountability and empower the voices of parents, according to a recent statement by Education Minister Stephen Lecce.

“These new measures will focus on getting back to the basics of education: strengthening reading, writing and math, and other STEM disciplines,” reads the official release.

“These reforms include the new authority for our government to set binding priorities on school boards that focus on boosting student achievement focused on reading, writing and math. This sends a clear signal to Ontario’s school boards we’ve listened to the priorities of parents putting common sense at the centre of our education system. To improve school board transparency, school board plans will be benchmarked against system-wide performance indicators.”

This legislation comes at a time that Ontario school boards are under fire for soliciting the gender identity and sexual orientation of minors in school surveys, with content detailing sexual deviance readily available in school libraries. They have prioritized the protection of scantily clad gender-bending teachers over the safety of children to have a wholesome and age-appropriate learning environment.

In Ontario, this is a direct result of the province's equity and inclusivity regulations — launched in 2009 by then-Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty. His successor, Kathleen Wynne, then implemented a gender ideology-based sexual education curriculum in 2015, developed by former education minister Benjamin Levin, a convicted pedophile.

Ontario’s current premier, Doug Ford, campaigned on repealing said curriculum, then reneged once elected.

Fast track to today, and boards all around the province have repeatedly silenced parents from delegating at board meetings when they simply express concern over the safety and security of young women and girls in wake of these so-called benign, progressive, gender non-conforming policies.

Karen Brown, the president of Canada’s largest education union, recently referred to these concerns as homophobia and transphobia in disguise.

Meanwhile, Canada’s largest school board has decided to extend its health and physical education (HPE) class offerings to include an “open” category — beginning this September.

As part of their commitment to “equitable access to programs and resources,” all Toronto District School Board (TDSB) secondary schools will not only offer girl-specific HPE courses, they will also be offering open HPE classes.

This is according to a system leaders weekly bulletin sent out earlier this year through the communication of Dani Carnevale, whose role as a service coordinator for the TDSB came with compensation $122,648 in 2022.

“The Girls HPE courses are open to all students who identity as girls, two-spirit, trans, gender nonconforming and nonbinary students. The Open HPE courses will be open to all students,” the email reads.

So, basically, both categories are open.

This used to be called co-ed, and it was a typical high school gym class occurrence. Over complicating gender separation based on poorly specified and ambiguously defined words like two-spirit, trans, gender nonconforming and nonbinary doesn’t exactly seem like it’s getting back to basics.

Bringing back co-ed does.

Tamara Ugolini

Senior Editor

Tamara Ugolini is an informed choice advocate turned journalist whose journey into motherhood sparked her passion for parental rights and the importance of true informed consent. She critically examines the shortcomings of "Big Policy" and its impact on individuals, while challenging mainstream narratives to empower others in their decision-making.

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