And across Canada, legislatures have created important ways for parents to participate in their children’s education.
asserted
parents → create → education
The rules vary by province, but the point is the same: parents should have a real say in the school system, not merely act as customers.
asserted
parents → vary → customers
But that voice is worth little if exercising it comes at too great a cost.
asserted
exercising → exercise → cost
I spent three terms on the school council of my son’s high school, both as an elected member and chair.
asserted
I → spend → member
During that time, I challenged the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board’s (HWDSB) authority to impose its will on our school council.
asserted
I → challenge → council
In neither case were the allegations against me upheld.
asserted
allegations → uphold → me
The trigger for my situation was the school board’s insistence that every school council meeting begin with an Indigenous land acknowledgement.
asserted
meeting → begin → acknowledgement
Whatever you might think of land acknowledgements, parents should have the right to make up their own minds about them.
uncertain
parents → think → them
As chair, I offered council members the opportunity to vote on the matter.
asserted
I → offer → matter
The school board declared instead that they were mandatory.
asserted
they → declare → ?
When I declined to read a land acknowledgement during a 2024 council meeting, the result was a human-rights investigation by the board into my behaviour, based on the absurd argument that I had caused “harm” by something I didn’t say.
asserted
I → decline → something
After I was cleared of causing harm the first time, I raised the issue again at council and later posted my objection to land acknowledgements on social media.
asserted
I → clear → media
The result was a second human-rights complaint against me — this time the school board suspended me from my council position during the investigation, despite lacking the legal authority to do so.
asserted
board → suspend → authority
But the suspension forced me to miss an important meeting.
asserted
suspension → force → meeting
Throughout this entire ordeal, I repeatedly pointed out that my local board had no authority to impose its political ideology on council meetings.
asserted
board → point → meetings
In Ontario, school councils exist under the Education Act and are governed by O. Reg. 612/00.
asserted
councils → exist → Reg
Their purpose, according to the regulations, is to improve pupil achievement and enhance the accountability of the education system.
uncertain
purpose → accord → system
Councils have the right to make their own bylaws, keep their own minutes and come to their own conclusions.
asserted
Councils → have → conclusions
My struggle to get the school board to recognize the limits of its power was a lonely one.
asserted
board → get → power
Geoffrey Horsman, a parent, school council member and biochemistry professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., launched his own judicial review after the Waterloo Region District School Board similarly demanded land acknowledgements prior to his school council meetings.
asserted
Board → launch → meetings
Despite the ongoing debate, this matter has been conclusively settled by the courts.
asserted
matter → settle → courts
The 2025 case of Zemer et al. v. Toronto District School Board saw parents challenge the Toronto school board’s decision to disband an elected council and order a new election.
asserted
parents → see → election
The Ontario Divisional Court found the board had acted without jurisdiction, describing a school council as “at arms-length from a school board and the rest of the education system.”
asserted
board → find → system
Yet school boards continue to act as if they’re in charge of school councils.
asserted
they → continue → councils
Months after the Zemer decision, I wrote to HWDSB CEO Sheryl Robinson Petrazzini asking her to identify the board’s authority in continuing to impose its land acknowledgement requirement.
asserted
I → write → requirement
Her response was that councils “should begin with a land acknowledgement,” but she ultimately acknowledged that it was “not legally mandatory under current bylaws.”
asserted
it → begin → bylaws
I finally had it in writing!
asserted
I → have → writing
It took two investigations, a suspension and nearly two years of constant struggle to establish what should have been obvious from the start.
asserted
what → take → start
The bigger problems of bullying and compelled speech remain.
asserted
problems → compel → bullying
Last year, for example, HWDSB superintendent Lindsay Snell issued a memo directing schools to turn their commencement ceremonies into yet another opportunity for the school board to impose its woke ideology on students and parents.
asserted
board → issue → students
The memo said commencement planning was to be guided by an “anti-oppressive/anti-racist/anti-colonialism lens” and directed that, “as citizens of Turtle Island,” schools “will include the HWDSB land acknowledgement in all commencement events.
asserted
schools → say → events
In a response, Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra told school boards to keep graduation ceremonies “strictly student-centred, apolitical, inclusive and respectful,” and warned organizers that graduations were “not an appropriate forum for organizers or administrators to express political views or promote personal or institutional positions.”
But when my son graduated this past June, I watched as not one but two land acknowledgements were delivered from the stage.
asserted
acknowledgements → tell → stage
Despite the minister’s intervention, the board carried on with the same institutional smugness it has always displayed.
asserted
it → carry → smugness
Will this ever change?
asserted
this → change → ?
When a principal or superintendent tells parents that land acknowledgements are mandatory — or acts like they are — most parents will be inclined to believe them.
asserted
parents → tell → them
As I found out, parents who question that authority can end up being investigated, suspended and/or ostracized by other parents.
asserted
who → find → parents
Even if they’re completely correct.
asserted
they → ’re → ?
Most parents on school councils have jobs, children and little spare time.
asserted
parents → have → jobs
Board administrators do this for a living.
asserted
administrators → do → living
They have staff, lawyers and vast public resources behind them.
asserted
They → have → them
…and 11 more, not listed.
The Aporia
