Ontario Strengthening Governance, Accountability and Transparency in School Boards, Postsecondary Institutions and Children’s Aid Societies

May 29, 2025

May 29, 2025

The Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025, if passed, would bolster public confidence in Ontario’s education system and the child and youth services sector, while preparing children and students for future success and the jobs of tomorrow. The proposed legislation, along with other changes, would:

Enhance accountability and oversight

Ontario is taking action to strengthen the governance, accountability and transparency of the public and postsecondary education systems and the child and youth services sector, including:

• Modernize government oversight and control of school boards by:
  • Simplifying, streamlining and broadening the Minister of Education’s powers of oversight, including over school board finances, governance and program performance
  • Providing authority for Ministry of Education staff to conduct school board audits, define the role of internal auditors and their prescribed duties and define the role of external auditors
  • Giving the Minister of Education the authority to initiate an investigation, issue binding direction or put a school board under supervision where there is a concern about a matter of public interest, whether on financial or non-financial grounds (for example, board governance dysfunction that is preventing key decisions from being made and impacting delivery of services)
  • Giving the Minister of Education powers to direct school boards regarding expenses, which may include school boards posting on their public-facing website their updated expense policies, as well as disclosing expenses of school board trustees, the director of education, associate directors, supervisory officers and others with similar roles
  • Giving the Minister of Education authority over school names when boards open a new school and/or change an existing school name and to oversee the process to limit the time and money school boards spend on such matters

• Update the legislative framework of the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017, and propose other changes to strengthen the accountability of children’s aid societies and prioritize the well-being of children, youth and families by:
  • Increasing the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services’ oversight of certain financial decisions made by children’s aid societies to improve transparency and financial sustainability, which would be outlined in future regulations
  • Requiring children’s aid societies to review and update their by-laws and make them available to the public to increase consistency and transparency, which would be outlined in future regulations
  • Consulting on requirements for children’s aid societies to publicly post board of directors’ meeting dates and minutes to increase transparency about the governance of societies, which would be outlined in future regulations
• Promote a fair, accountable and transparent postsecondary education system by:
  • Introducing new authorities so the government can require transparency and increased oversight of ancillary fees at postsecondary institutions
  • Requiring colleges and universities to provide detailed breakdowns of how tuition fee revenue is used
  • Requiring all admissions policies to be merit-based and clearly outlined publicly to ensure prospective students understand how their application is being evaluated for acceptance
  • Requiring that colleges and universities develop research security plans, which will complement Ontario’s existing research security framework to respond to emerging and evolving risks

Improve safety and well-being of students and children and youth receiving services from a children’s aid society

The following would help ensure students, children and youth are safe, respected and empowered:

• Ontario would require school boards to implement School Resource Officer (SRO) programs where they are offered by local police services. This change would help build relationships between youth and police, actively promote positive behaviour and create a culture of mutual respect. These programs typically:
  • Deploy police officers with specialized training to interact with students and other members of the school community
  • Include a diverse range of duties that vary from board to board, such as:
    • Public safety and law-related education (for example, road safety, cyber safety)
    • Relationship-building and positive role modeling
    • Community liaison
    • Law enforcement
• The government would create consistency across Ontario by standardizing the requirements for police records checks so boards collect, based on whether the person is in a position of trust or authority, a vulnerable sector check (VSC), a criminal record and judicial matters check (CRJMC), or criminal record check (CRC) every five years from employees, service providers, volunteers and students on an education placement.
• The Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services is supporting child and youth receiving support and services from a children’s aid society by ensuring they are aware of and understand the role of the Ombudsman. The changes would also help ensure that young people receiving services from children’s aid societies know how to contact the Ombudsman when they have a complaint about services provided by a society, by:
  • Working with the Ministry of the Attorney General to expand the Ombudsman’s investigative powers to include complaints about society services provided to youth aged 18 to 22 years old who are eligible for, or are participating in, the Ready, Set, Go program
  • Amending the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017, to clarify when children’s aid societies need to inform children and youth about the Ombudsman, including those eligible for or participating in the Ready, Set, Go program
• The Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services is also consulting with children’s aid societies and out-of-home care licensees on proposed regulatory requirements to physically post age-appropriate information about children and youth rights and internal complaints processes in areas that are accessible to them. This would align with existing requirements for societies to post information about the Ombudsman, and similarly aligns with requirements in other care settings.

Promote student success

The following changes would help prepare children and students for future success and help them develop a deeper sense of civic responsibility:

• To help incentivize student volunteerism and foster civic engagement, the Ministry of Education will introduce a Minister’s Certificate of Recognition for Community Involvement. The categories for the certificate are:
  • Bronze: 50 to 99 hours
  • Silver: 100 to 199 hours
  • Gold: 200-plus hours
• To instill civic pride, schools across the province will be marking Ontario Day (June 1), a dedicated time for student learning and celebration of key milestones in the province’s history that resulted in the betterment of Ontario. The Ministry of Education will guide school board implementation, including criteria for the selection of Ontario milestones for learning and celebration.
• School boards will be given the ability to structure elementary school day schedules to maximize student learning and meet local needs, while maintaining the 300 minutes of required daily instructional time, school start/end times and minimum requirements for breaks.

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Additional Resources

• Ontario to Introduce Legislation to Strengthen School Board Oversight