Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustees voted on Wednesday evening to ask the Ministry of Education to create a mandatory equity, diversity and anti-racism certification for all Ontario teachers.
TDSB student trustee Angelika Bell, who created the motion, told TorontoToday on Thursday she was relieved by its passage.
“Educators are afraid to have these conversations because there’s nowhere universal to turn to,” she said.
Bell said she is optimistic this training, should it be implemented, will provide educators with information about how to best respond to challenges students are raising about issues like anti-Black racism and antisemitism.
Though some trustees on Wednesday night wanted to discuss the motion before voting on it, they were overruled during the board meeting. The motion passed unanimously as part of a package of items that had been recommended by various TDSB committees in the weeks prior.
The motion references TDSB data that indicates incidents of hate may be on the rise at Toronto schools. Currently, there is no mandatory anti-racism and equity training for Ontario teachers.
However, while the proposal for the training received strong support from trustees at committee, not all are in favour.
Trustee Patrick Nunziata, who pushed for more debate on the motion on Wednesday, told TorontoToday he does not support more mandatory diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training for teachers. He said the proposed mandatory certification could compromise workers’ well-being and is not widely supported by parents.
The trustee’s motion comes just one day following a decision by the United States government to place all federal staff working on DEI-related initiatives on administrative leave. The push came as part of a broader effort by some Republicans to eradicate such policies from the government.
Trustees vote ‘no’ on more DEI debate
The DEI motion passed by TDSB trustees on Wednesday evening calls on board chair Neethan Shan to send a letter to the Ministry of Education and the Ontario College of Teachers advocating for the mandatory certification.
The motion does not detail what topics the training should include. Instead it proposes only a list of groups the province should engage to develop the certification, including teachers, the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association and equity and diversity experts.
At the program and school services committee last week, the motion received unanimous support.
The day after the meeting, trustee Alexis Dawson told TorontoToday she was pleased to have voted in support of creating the training, believing it would help improve student achievement.
“People are not understanding that DEI work does not come at the expense of core subject instruction,” she said.
Core teaching within the TDSB focuses on math, science and literacy — and DEI education compliments these subjects, she said.
However, at Wednesday night’s meeting, a group of trustees expressed interest in more debate on the item but were ultimately overruled.
The motion came packaged as part of more than 20 items that received recommendation for approval from committee meetings in the weeks prior. Trustee James Li moved a motion to “lift” the DEI certification proposal out of the omnibus package for further debate but did not receive the two-thirds majority required.
The DEI motion subsequently passed unanimously as part of the package.
DEI training and worker well-being
Had there been a chance to vote on the motion directly, Nunziata said he would not have been in favour.
In his six years as a trustee, Nunziata said he has seen that diversity, equity and inclusion is already “front and centre” within the board’s work and is incorporated into teachers’ existing training.
Nunziata also alleged such mandatory trainings can come at the expense of teacher well-being, invoking the suicide of former TDSB principal Richard Bilkszto. Before the man’s death in July 2023, he launched a lawsuit against the school board for allegedly failing to support him when he was accused of racism during an anti-racism training session.
“I trust our teachers. I know they have the best interest of the kids at heart,” Nunziata said. “To put them at training sessions where they could be at risk … it’s not something that I wanted to do.”
In an interview with TorontoToday on Thursday, Bell said Bilkszto’s death was a “complete tragedy.” She added, however, that equity training is meant to be inclusive of everyone, regardless of race, gender and religion.
“What we are trying to really address here is the fear that’s instilled within educators when these conversations come up in the classroom,” she said.
Bell said taking a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to such issues is not the right answer.
The idea of a mandatory DEI certification has received support from the Ontario Public School Board Association’s Black Trustees Caucus, an advocacy group which includes members from across Ontario.
TorontoToday did not receive a response by publication time from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation regarding the proposal for DEI training. The Ontario Teachers' Federation declined to comment.
Reading the ‘tea leaves’
A spokesperson for Minister of Education Jill Dunlop did not respond to TorontoToday by the time of publication about her willingness to explore the development of a DEI certification.
Nunziata said he does not expect this proposal to find a receptive audience with the province.
“I’m reading the tea leaves … and there’s a lot of people just fed up with it,” he said of DEI training.
“There's a lot of support against DEI with the current provincial government and I don't think it would help them to implement something like this.”
Still, Bell said she remains cautiously optimistic.
“I know the provincial government cares about their students,” she said. “They understand that this is an issue.”
“I just wonder whether or not they’ll be willing to address it head on.”
