Ontario school boards struggling to implement anti-racism plans: report

A new report from an education watchdog group says anti-racism work is lagging in schools across the country and is being held back by a lack of data-gathering and a lack of resources to do the work.

“I know data sounds boring, but we're missing data and that is a really big piece,” People for Education Executive Director Annie Kidder told CP24 in an interview Monday.

“So in Ontario, there has been a drive to ensure every single school board collects demographic data from their students. This is a voluntary process where students provide this data that will be incredibly important going forward so that we actually understand, like who's missing out who's falling through the cracks, so data is really important.”

Ontario in 2017 was the first province to pass anti-racism legislation. In 2021, the Ministry of Education released a Board Improvement and Equity Plan (BIEP), which tasked all school boards with collecting voluntary student demographic data by September 2022.

But while anti-racism policies have started to show up at publicly funded school boards across Ontario, the new report from People for Education says there are “significant inconsistencies in the execution of these strategies.”

The report says that identity-based data is important because it “yields valuable insights about how different groups experience the same institutions, systems, and processes” and compares outcomes of different groups.

“This evidence is critical in the process of advocating for marginalized and underserved groups, in addition to guiding improvement plans towards more equitable systems,” the report states.

In Ontario, People for Education scanned the websites of all 72 publicly-funded school boards, looking for information about whether they had conducted a census for students and staff and whether they had an anti-racism strategy and/or included anti-racism language in their equity policies.

“Overall, 74% of school board websites mentioned racism in their equity and inclusion policies, 40% of publicly funded schools had an anti-racism statement on their website, and 28% had an anti-racism strategy or approach available online,” the report found.

It also found that 67 per cent of school boards have conducted or are in the process of conducting a student census and 54 per cent have conducted a school climate survey. Just 28 per cent of school boards have conducted a staff census so far, the report found.

Some 64 per cent of Ontario school principals reported that their school boards collected race-based and/or demographic student data. The figure was highest in the GTA, where 76 per cent of schools said they were collecting the data.

Kidder said the numbers reflect the fact that principals are having a difficult time implementing the policies without additional resources.

“We can't just keep asking principals – and this is what principals told us in Ontario – to do more,” Kidder said. “So they are all saying ‘we're under a lot of stress.’ They definitely understand how important it is that we have anti-racism strategies, and it's definitely included in teachers’ professional development, but if you really want to have you know, whole schools addressing these issues, you have to make sure they have the resources and the time and the staff to do it. And that's not really there.”

Low buy-in at schools with few racialized students, having just one or two enthusiastic individuals among a mostly indifferent population, frequent school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a lack of trust-building and safe environments for teachers were some of the other reasons cited by principals for difficulty collecting the data.

Kidder said her group was also “surprised and a bit concerned” that some of the strategies for school boards appear to have disappeared from the Ministry of Education’s website.

“We're sort of missing that from the ministry website right now,” she said. “So we're wondering what happened in that area.”

A number of school boards around the GTA have struggled in recent years with allegations of systemic racism and anti-Black racism. Some boards have launched independent reviews into board culture and policies and have made commitments to implementing anti-racism policies.

Overall, the report made three key recommendations. They include acknowledging the problem, viewing data collection as the start of a process rather than an end-goal, and involving entire school communities, but especially groups historically impacted by discrimination.

Kidder said providing the proper resources to move the work forward is key.

“We know there's a direct connection between kids’ chances for success and race. So what's frustrating is that we're not doing the things that need to be done,” she said.

What’s needed, she said, is a “whole of government approach” that treats the problem seriously.

“The government has to decide all the way through their strategies, but particularly in education, that we care about this so much that cracking this nut – which we continually report on and do not do enough about – that you have to actually spend money. And again, you have to ensure that there's the space and time to do this work in schools.”

In a statement to CP24.com, a spokesperson for Education Minister Stephen Lecce said Ontario has “significantly invested in new anti-racism resources to combat all forms of discrimination in our school system and recognizes that the work must continue.”

“We have taken action province-wide to hold school boards accountable in order to deliver truly inclusive schools for all children, irrespective of their heritage, faith, orientation, colour of skin or place of birth,” Spokesperson Grace Lee wrote. “That includes work within our curriculum to include Black history, ending streaming and discretionary suspensions, and ending seniority-based hiring to ensure that only the best educators, with a focus on diversity, are represented in the classroom.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include a response later provided by Minister Lecce’s office.