Summary#

Bill 98, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, 2023, amends Ontario’s Education Act, Early Childhood Educators Act, 2007 and Ontario College of Teachers Act, 1996, among other laws. It was enacted as Chapter 11 of Ontario’s 2023 statutes, but some provisions require a later proclamation to come into force; the supplied material does not give those dates. The bill’s stated goal is to focus education on student achievement, hands-on learning and skills development.

• The Education Minister gets new powers over provincial student-achievement priorities, board training, parent communications, student mental health, curriculum reviews and school buildings. Some powers let the Minister set policies or guidelines that boards must follow.
• School boards must develop apprenticeship learning that meets criteria set by regulation, follow the Minister’s policies and guidelines, and treat pupils taking part in it as attending school.
• The Minister may direct boards to arrange joint use of school property. Boards may or must dispose of property in circumstances set by regulation, and the Minister may direct a disposal if the property is not needed for current or expected pupil accommodation needs over the next 10 years.
• Boards must adopt a code of conduct for board members. An integrity commissioner can investigate alleged breaches, impose sanctions and face an appeal process.
• Regulators for early childhood educators and teachers gain powers to require education or remedial training. Changes also affect complaint handling, discipline and eligibility for funding for people affected by sexual abuse.
• A professional teacher education program cannot be accredited unless it teaches knowledge of Ontario’s curriculum, particularly math, reading and literacy, along with any other requirements set by regulation.

What it means for you#

• Parents and guardians: Boards must follow Minister-set rules for communications, including providing specified information and making a response protocol public. Boards must meet with parents about their multi-year plans early and late in each school year, including planned and actual spending and progress. These rules do not guarantee any particular result for a student.
• Students and school communities: Boards must offer qualifying apprenticeship learning, and the Minister may set policies on student mental health and learning materials about mental health. The bill does not itself set out the apprenticeship criteria or the details of those policies.
• School boards and trustees: Boards must keep records of required training for at least four years. If a board’s plan is incomplete or its progress unsatisfactory, the Minister may assign support personnel, and the board must cooperate. A code-of-conduct investigation can lead to censure, reduced or returned honoraria, limits on meeting attendance or committee roles, removal from leadership or representative roles, or other sanctions. A board or the trustee can appeal.
• Boards managing school property: The Minister must approve a building demolition. The Minister may also set required building designs or specifications, and may direct two or more boards to make arrangements for joint construction, ownership, control, management, maintenance, operation, location or use of property. Disposal rules, including who property must be offered to and how proceeds may be used, may be set by regulation. Disposal proceeds must be used for the board’s purposes.
• Early childhood educators and teachers: Their regulators may require specified education or remediation. In certain cases involving a Criminal Code conviction for the same conduct, a discipline committee need not hold a hearing if the appeal period has ended or appeals are exhausted. The bill also changes when an employer report becomes a complaint and who is treated as the complainant.
• People affected by sexual abuse by an educator: Funding eligibility no longer depends on the child or student being supervised by the educator. For early childhood educators, the College must instead consider whether the educator’s practice facilitated the relationship or access to the child.
• Employers of teachers: The bill makes specified employer contraventions offences punishable by a fine of up to $25,000. The supplied material does not describe the underlying requirements in detail.

Money#

No publicly available information on the bill’s overall cost or expected savings.

• The Minister may charge a fee to evaluate learning materials for selection and approval; the bill does not set the fee amount.
• Regulations may set fees for integrity commissioners, which boards may be required to pay. Boards may also need to provide records, meetings and cooperation, but no cost estimate is given.
• A trustee’s honorarium may be reduced and excess payments recovered as a sanction; the amount is subject to regulation.
• Property-sale proceeds must go to the board’s purposes, not to general provincial revenue.

What is unclear#

• The parent Acts were not supplied, so the changes cannot be checked against all current rules or existing programs.
• The bill leaves important details to regulations and policies, including apprenticeship criteria, provincial priorities, property-disposal rules and possible fees.
• Some provisions require proclamation. The supplied material does not say when they came into force.
• The bill does not set out how boards should choose or offer apprenticeship learning, or how students and parents can challenge decisions about it.
• The scope of the new rules for school-board-controlled entities and board participation in prescribed activities depends on future regulations.

Case for#

• The bill appears intended to give the province more tools to focus school plans and curriculum reviews on student achievement and relevant skills.
• Required parent communications and yearly meetings could make board plans, spending and progress easier for parents to see.
• Apprenticeship learning gives boards a legal route to offer pupils practical learning that counts as attending school.
• A formal investigation and appeal process could give board members a consistent way to address alleged code-of-conduct breaches.

Case against#

• The Minister’s powers over board plans, school property, building designs and policies could reduce local boards’ control; the bill leaves many limits to later rules.
• Boards could face new costs for training, meetings, records, support personnel and integrity commissioners, but no estimate is provided.
• Property rules could require a board to dispose of property or follow conditions set later by regulation, while the bill does not specify the full criteria or process.
• The bill sets up new duties and powers but does not itself explain how several of them will work in practice, including apprenticeship learning and parent-response standards.