I plan to improve the flow of communication between Board Trustees, parents, teachers, and other parties. The goal is to encourage the active engagement of parents in their children’s education and well-being, as well as to facilitate meaningful and sincere consultation on matters that may adversely impact our students.

Recent research indicates approximately 55% of Canadian children have fallen victim to cyberbullying. Cyberbullying can potentially impair a child’s mental health, physical safety, their emotional and social well-being. It is our responsibility to ensure our children’s safety and protection. Whether it is from name calling, sexting, physical assault, harassment, and other harms. This is why I would personally seek to create policies and systems to ensure both victims and perpetrators of cyberbullying in our City’s schools are given the appropriate attention and focus to stem this phenomenon.

Full access to a world class education should not be determined based on geographic location. Every student, in all schools, in every community must be given equal opportunity to learn. Consequently, increased education funding should be made available for the operation and maintenance of schools in poorer communities to bring these schools and student up to par with their more affluent counterparts. Additionally, we need to develop and re-enforce measures to ensure that students and schools are not disproportionately affected by the current and future economic uncertainties.

The TDSB needs to have more equitable funding to promote the inclusion of minority students, students with disabilities, special needs and others who have been historically excluded or left behind. More focus needs to be directed to the mental health of our students and it is therefore imperative that more funding becomes available to facilitate targeted research and support regarding the effects of the pandemic, especially on those children born over the last two years and about to enter the school system. This includes attention to the reported psychological, emotional, and neurological fallouts resulting from the lockdowns, limits on face-to-face learning and interactions, the extended screen time, the long-term effects of the virus on those children who contracted COVID-19 and those children who might have been exposed or overly exposed to various forms of violence and other issues during the lockdowns.

The TDSB needs to have more equitable funding to promote the inclusion of minority students, students with disabilities, special needs and others who have been historically excluded or left behind. More focus needs to be directed to the mental health of our students and it is therefore imperative that more funding becomes available to facilitate targeted research and support regarding the effects of the pandemic, especially on those children born over the last two years and about to enter the school system. This includes attention to the reported psychological, emotional, and neurological fallouts resulting from the lockdowns, limits on face-to-face learning and interactions, the extended screen time, the long-term effects of the virus on those children who contracted COVID-19 and those children who might have been exposed or overly exposed to various forms of violence and other issues during the lockdowns.