big issues:bullying in schools
Toronto has four publicly funded school boards, split by language (English or French) and faith (public or Catholic). The English-language boards are the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB). The French-language boards are Conseil scolaire Viamonde and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir.
Before you read: a note on provincial supervision. The TDSB and TCDSB have been under provincial supervision since June 27, 2025. Viamonde and MonAvenir are not. While supervision is in place, provincially appointed supervisors exercise powers that would normally belong to elected trustees. Unless otherwise noted, this primer describes a trustee's ordinary powers, outside supervision. To read more: Ontario government.
Bullying affects whether students feel safe at school. Ontario requires every publicly funded school board to have policies and plans to prevent and respond to bullying. Bullying can take physical, verbal, social, or online forms. In 2025, a national report found that 71% of Canadian youth aged 12 to 17 had faced some form of bullying in the past year.
The Province sets many of the rules boards must follow when responding to bullying.
School boards work within the provincial framework. Trustees help shape board policies, priorities, and spending, but they do not manage individual incidents. Here are three ways to understand the role trustees play in bullying prevention and response: the policies they approve, how each board's approach differs, and what has changed recently. These are not the only factors, and the largest levers belong to the Province.
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Trustees Help Shape Board Policy Within Provincial Rules
Ontario defines bullying and requires every board to have bullying prevention and intervention policies and plans. Its main direction to school boards is Policy/Program Memorandum 144 (PPM 144).
Within those rules, trustees approve the board's policies on bullying prevention, school safety, codes of conduct, and discipline (Go to information source). The policies cover how students report concerns, what programs exist, how staff are trained, and how results are tracked. When not under supervision, trustees also approve the board's budget, which funds safe-school and student well-being supports.
Trustees do not deal with individual bullying cases. Principals and school staff investigate concerns, respond to incidents, and make decisions about discipline (Go to information source). A trustee can listen to concerns, explain the board's processes, and raise recurring issues for discussion at the board level.
Under Ontario's Policy/Program Memorandum 144, every board must have bullying prevention and intervention policies and review them at least every two years. That review must consult students, parents, staff, and the community.
Go to information sourceOntario's Core Education Funding includes allocations that boards can direct toward bullying prevention, such as student mental health and student safety and well-being.
Go to information source
Each Board Runs Its Own Prevention Approach
All four boards must follow Ontario's requirements for bullying prevention and intervention. Each board also adopts its own policies and programs. Trustees shape those board-wide policies through board decisions. No single trustee can change policy on their own. School staff are responsible for carrying out board policies in schools. The examples below show how each Toronto board approaches bullying prevention.
Toronto District School Board (TDSB). The TDSB's Caring and Safe Schools policy sets the board-wide approach, and its bullying-prevention procedure requires every school to keep a safe-schools team and a local prevention plan built around the school's needs (Go to information source).
Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB). The TCDSB's bullying prevention policy requires every school to have a safe-schools team and a local plan. The board also runs anonymous school climate surveys so that students can report concerns to staff (Go to information source).
Conseil scolaire Viamonde. Viamonde schools produce annual bullying prevention and intervention plans (Plans de prévention et d'intervention en matière d'intimidation), published on each school's page alongside its code of conduct (Go to information source).
Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir. MonAvenir runs its bullying prevention work through a multi-year "bienveillance" (caring schools) plan, which has schools focus each year on school climate and bullying, with prevention resources and awareness activities (Go to information source).
Recent Developments
Bullying continues to be a concern for students, families, schools and school boards. National research has found that many young people experience bullying, including online (Go to information source). School boards continue to review policies and programs as they respond to those concerns.
The Province updated its bullying framework. Ontario reissued PPM 144 in 2021, replacing the 2012 version. It sets the provincial expectations for prevention, reporting, intervention, student supports, staff training, and evaluation, and it continues to guide how Ontario school boards address bullying (Go to information source).