{
  "dataset": "Ontario education and autism provincial actions tracker",
  "description": "Dated provincial actions — legislation, regulations, announcements — with status, family-impact framing, and primary source links.",
  "publisher": "End The Wait Ontario",
  "publisherUrl": "https://www.endthewaitontario.com",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "sourceOfTruth": "lib/data/provincial-actions.ts",
  "statsSsotLastVerified": "2026-08-10",
  "actions": [
    {
      "id": "bill-33-supporting-children",
      "date": "2025-11-20",
      "title": "Bill 33 — Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025 passed",
      "summary": "The Ontario Legislature passed Bill 33, the Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025, on November 19, 2025, with royal assent the next day (S.O. 2025, c. 12). The Act lets the Minister of Education investigate and place a school board under supervision over any \"matter of public interest\" — a far broader and more subjective standard than the previous grounds — and lets the Minister, rather than Cabinet, impose that supervision directly. It also removes a board's ability to apply to the Divisional Court to have a supervision order revoked (s. 230.17), and provides that the Minister's takeover decisions are not open to review by any court.",
      "familyImpact": "Bill 33 makes it easier and faster for the province to remove the elected school board trustees families vote for — and, by eliminating the Divisional Court appeal, removes the main legal check on those takeovers. When trustees lose power, the escalation pathways parents rely on for IEP disputes and special education advocacy are disrupted, and there is now no court a community can turn to to reverse a supervision order.",
      "type": "legislation",
      "status": "passed",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-44/session-1/bill-33",
      "sourceLabel": "Bill 33, Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025 — Legislative Assembly of Ontario",
      "secondarySourceUrl": "https://gowlingwlg.com/en/insights-resources/articles/2025/ontario-ministry-takeover-school-boards",
      "secondarySourceLabel": "Gowling WLG — legal analysis of the ministerial takeover powers",
      "tags": [
        "bill-33",
        "legislation",
        "governance",
        "trustees",
        "board-takeover",
        "2025"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "bill-98-better-schools",
      "date": "2023-06-03",
      "title": "Bill 98 — Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act expands supervision powers",
      "summary": "The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act (Bill 98) passed in June 2023. It expanded the Ministry's authority to intervene in school boards beyond financial distress, adding student achievement and governance concerns as grounds for appointing supervisors. Procedural timelines were shortened, making it faster for the Minister to act.",
      "familyImpact": "Before Bill 98, the province could only take over a school board that was financially failing. After Bill 98, the Minister can intervene based on subjective measures of governance or student outcomes — criteria that have no fixed definition. This means democratic oversight of your school board can be suspended for reasons families have little ability to anticipate or challenge.",
      "type": "legislation",
      "status": "passed",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/23b01",
      "sourceLabel": "Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, 2023 — Ontario Laws",
      "tags": [
        "bill-98",
        "legislation",
        "supervision",
        "governance",
        "2023"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "o-reg-374-23-school-property",
      "date": "2023-09-01",
      "title": "O. Reg. 374/23 — New rules for school property sale and use",
      "summary": "Ontario Regulation 374/23 introduced new rules governing how school boards can sell, lease, or declare surplus school properties. The regulation expands ministerial oversight of board property decisions and creates new requirements for boards to offer surplus properties to provincial entities before selling on the open market.",
      "familyImpact": "School closures and property sales affect communities with children who need stable, accessible school placements. For families of disabled students, school closures can mean longer transportation times, loss of familiar routines, and disruption of established support relationships. The regulation gives the province more control over which schools stay open.",
      "type": "regulation",
      "status": "active",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/230374",
      "sourceLabel": "O. Reg. 374/23 — Ontario Laws",
      "tags": [
        "regulation",
        "school-property",
        "land",
        "school-closures",
        "2023"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "peel-dsb-supervision-2026",
      "date": "2026-01-28",
      "title": "Peel District School Board placed under provincial supervision",
      "summary": "The Ministry of Education placed the Peel District School Board under provincial supervision, appointing supervisor Heather Watt and transferring the elected trustees' powers to her. The Ministry cited five consecutive years of deficit and governance concerns; the order halted a planned mid-year reduction of classroom teachers. The board chair publicly characterised the takeover as a \"smokescreen\" for chronic underfunding. (This 2026 financial order is separate from Peel's 2020–2023 supervision over anti-Black racism, which was lifted in January 2023.)",
      "familyImpact": "About 155,000 students attend Peel DSB, where binding governance now rests with an appointed supervisor rather than elected trustees. SEAC continues in an advisory capacity, but its recommendations reach a supervisor with no electoral accountability to parents, and the trustee step in the IEP escalation pathway is disrupted.",
      "type": "supervision",
      "status": "active",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.ontario.ca/page/school-board-oversight",
      "sourceLabel": "School board oversight — Ministry of Education",
      "secondarySourceUrl": "https://halifax.citynews.ca/2026/01/30/peel-school-board-supervision-a-smokescreen-for-underfunding-chair-says/",
      "secondarySourceLabel": "Peel board chair calls supervision a \"smokescreen\" — Global News",
      "tags": [
        "peel-dsb",
        "supervision",
        "board-takeover",
        "2026"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "tdsb-supervision-2025",
      "date": "2025-06-27",
      "title": "Toronto District School Board placed under provincial supervision",
      "summary": "The Ministry placed Canada's largest school board, the Toronto District School Board, under provincial supervision, appointing supervisor Rohit Gupta over growing in-year deficits and depleted reserves. A PwC investigation attributed the deficits to structural causes — pandemic-era enrolment decline, staffing pressures, and school-renewal costs — and found the board's executive compensation to be a \"bona fide restructuring,\" i.e. it did not find financial misconduct.",
      "familyImpact": "With roughly 238,000 students, any disruption to TDSB governance has outsized impact on the disability community. Special education budget and policy decisions now sit with an appointed supervisor rather than elected trustees, making IEP advocacy and escalation less predictable for families.",
      "type": "supervision",
      "status": "active",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.ontario.ca/page/school-board-oversight",
      "sourceLabel": "School board oversight — Ministry of Education",
      "secondarySourceUrl": "https://www.ontario.ca/files/2025-06/edu-tdsb-investigation-report-en-2025-06-27.pdf",
      "secondarySourceLabel": "PwC Investigation Report — Toronto DSB (ontario.ca)",
      "tags": [
        "tdsb",
        "supervision",
        "board-takeover",
        "2025"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "york-catholic-supervision-2026",
      "date": "2026-03-05",
      "title": "York Catholic District School Board placed under provincial supervision",
      "summary": "The Ministry placed the York Catholic District School Board under provincial supervision, citing depleted reserves and the absence of a realistic financial recovery plan. York Catholic was the eighth Ontario board placed under provincial supervision since 2025 — the most extensive use of these powers in the province's recent history.",
      "familyImpact": "Eight boards under supervision means eight communities where the democratic accountability structure for school decisions has been suspended. For families navigating special education disputes, the loss of trustee accountability compounds existing challenges in systems that were already difficult to navigate.",
      "type": "supervision",
      "status": "active",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.ontario.ca/page/school-board-oversight",
      "sourceLabel": "School board oversight — Ministry of Education",
      "tags": [
        "york-catholic",
        "supervision",
        "board-takeover",
        "2026"
      ]
    }
  ]
}