The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is the English-language public-secular school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The minority public-secular francophone (Conseil scolaire Viamonde), public-separate anglophone (Toronto Catholic District School Board), and public-separate francophone (Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir) communities of Toronto also have their own publicly funded school boards and schools that operate in the same area, but which are independent of the TDSB. Its headquarters are in the district of North York."5050_2.gif." (Archive) Toronto District School Board. Retrieved on March 12, 2011.

The TDSB was founded on January 20, 1953, as the Metropolitan Toronto School Board to be a "super-ordinate umbrella board" to coordinate activities and to apportion tax revenues equitably across the six anglophone and later a francophone school boards within Metro Toronto. The MTSB was reorganized and replaced on January 1, 1998, when the six anglophone metro school boards and MTSB merged to form the Toronto District School Board. The francophone school board of MTSB was amalgamated with several other Francophone school boards in the region to form Conseil scolaire Viamonde.

Today, the TDSB is Canada's largest school board and the fourth largest school board in North America.

History

Early history The earliest schools in Toronto were in private homes, often run by members of the Anglican clergy. Public funding for schools began with the establishment of the Home District Grammar School. Notably, it was not governed by an elected school board. Voting for the city's first elected school board took place in 1816 following the passage of the Common School Act. The board, as per the regulations of the act, had three members: Eli Playter, Thomas David Morrison, and Jesse Ketchum. The board governed the Common School at York which was located on the same grounds as the Grammar School. However, this lasted only four years before the school and its associated school board were shut down in favour of the creation of the Central School which was placed under the control of an unelected board and marked an attempt to bring public schools under Anglican religious control. Control of this board in Toronto was then subsumed under a provincial board of education in 1824, itself merged into the Council of King's College, a body charged with obtaining a university for the province.

In 1831, Upper Canada College was created to replace the Home District Grammar School with state funding in the form of an initial crown lands grant of 6,000 acres, later supplemented by an additional 60,000 acres. In contrast, common schools in this era, the equivalent of today's elementary schools, were woefully underfunded. Funding for the schools was derived from the sale of crown lands, but the lands chosen to support education were undesirable and could not command a high enough price to sustain the common schools. In addition to undesirability, the acreage devoted to funding the common schools initially granted in 1816 was later reduced by half. These deficiencies began to be addressed by the School Act of 1844 and culminated in the creation of local public school boards across the province including the Toronto Public School Board.

The Toronto Public School Board The Toronto Public School Board (TPSB) was created in 1847 to oversee elementary education in Toronto. However, the date of creation of the board is also given as 1850 as this was when trustee elections under a ward system started. Legislation toward the creation of local, public school boards began with the School Act of 1844, which stipulated municipal contributions toward the salaries of teachers. The Toronto Public School Board continued to govern the city's elementary schools until 1904 when, following a city referendum, it was merged with the Collegiate Institute Board, which oversaw the city's secondary schools, and the Technical School Board, which oversaw the Toronto Technical School, to form the Toronto Board of Education.

Six trustees were appointed to the original 1847 board by the municipal council of Toronto to serve with the mayor. The board was composed entirely of white men until the election of the first female trustee Augusta Stowe-Gullen in 1892. The board was created after the passage of the Common School Act of 1846 spearheaded by Egerton Ryerson, architect of both publicly funded schooling and the residential school system. The Act also called for the creation of a provincial normal school which would become the Toronto Normal School. Prior to the 1846 Common School Act, individual schools were governed by boards created under the Grammar School Act of 1807 and the Common Schools Act of 1816. Like all boards of education at the time, the Toronto Public School Board was responsible for raising money to fund schools in addition to grants provided by the provincial government. However, they were not empowered to make these levies compulsory until the passage of the Common School Act in 1850 brought on in part by the closure of schools in Toronto in 1848 due to lack of funds. This act also allowed for the creation of separate schools boards in Ontario including racially segregated schools. In Toronto, the act allowed for the creation of a Catholic school board which would eventually become today's Toronto Catholic District School Board. While elementary schooling across the province was not made free by law until 1871, the 1850 Common School Act allowed for individual boards to entirely fund their schools through public funds. The Toronto Public School Board voted to do so in 1851, making elementary schooling in the city free. Minutes from the first meetings of the Toronto Public School Board have been preserved by the Toronto District School Board Museum and Archives.

Schools When the Toronto Public School Board was created, elementary or common schools in the city did not have dedicated buildings but instead, "the thousand-odd children who were registered as common school pupils were accommodated in rented premises--a dozen or so small halls and houses, designated by numbers." This changed shortly after the election of the first board when six schools identical in architecture were built, one in each ward of the city. More schools were built over the coming decades. Some of these original schools are listed in the order of their construction below:

Louisa St. School (1852) The Park School (1853) George St. School (1853) John St. School (1855) Victoria St. School (1855) Phoebe St. School (1855) Jesse Ketchum School (1858) Givins St. School (1859) Elizabeth St. School (1868) York St. School (1870) Bathurst St. School (1872) Church St. School (1872) Parliament St. School (1872)

The six original schools have since been demolished with only the Park School having been replaced with a new school. As the student population grew, rented premises continued to be used to accommodate students, especially in the case of auxiliary schools where attendance was lower and the schools were more similar to county schools.

Board members The first elections for the school board were held on September 3, 1850. Two trustees were elected to represent each of the six wards in the city. +Results of 1850 School Trustee ElectionsWardTrusteesSt. Andrew'sG.P. Ridout; Alex. MacdonaldSt. David'sJos. Workman, M.D.; A.A. RiddellSt. George'sJ.L. Robinson; E.F. WhittemoreSt. James'sJ.D. Ridout; D. PatersonSt. Lawrence'sJ.G. Beard; Wm. GooderhamSt. Patrick'sJ.H. Hagarty; James Price This list includes many prominent families of Toronto. Positions on the board were unpaid and were dominated by members of wealthy families who could afford to spend time in meetings and advocating for board policies. J.D. Ridout and G.P. Ridout were sons of Thomas Ridout, a politician and chairman of the Home District Council. The Gooderham name is known best for its connection to Gooderham and Worts a Canadian distillery since purchased by Hiram Walker and whose buildings have been retained and restored in Toronto's Distillery District. Joshua George Beard served on the board for twenty years in addition to serving as a city alderman and was elected the 10th Mayor of Toronto in 1854. Gooderham, David Paterson, and E.F. Whittemore were directors of Consumer's Gas Works a Toronto gas distribution company since acquired by Enbridge whose buildings remain prominent in Toronto including the Consumer's Gas Building and as performance and rehearsal spaces for Canadian Stage. James L. Robinson was George W. Allan's partner in law and son of Sir John Robinson, 1st Baronet of Toronto. John Hawkins Hagarty would go on to become Chief Justice of Ontario.

James Price was a builder; his presence as the only trustee from more humble roots speaks to the composition of the Toronto Public School Board in this era. Joseph Workman was elected chair of the school board. In addition to serving on the board for five years, he was superintendent of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, now the Queen Street Mental Health Centre of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Workman was one of the prime supporters of the campaign to build publicly owned schools.

Notable figures George Anthony Barber, the board's first Local Superintendent, and the father of Canadian cricket.

Rev. James Porter, the board's second Local Superintendent. He worked to increase attendance at Toronto's public schools and reported to Egerton Ryerson on the construction of a new school for the board, Elizabeth St School.

Jesse Ketchum, a supporter of schooling responsible for many donations to the board and after whom the current Toronto District School Board school, Jesse Ketchum Public School, is named.

James L. Hughes, principal of the Toronto Normal School's Model School and chief inspector for the Toronto Public School Board.

Characteristics of schooling Schooling in the era of the Toronto Public School Board was markedly different from modern schooling. In these large urban schools, students were separated by gender but taught in large, mixed-age classes of often over 100 students. Students were taught out of readers and exams were conducted orally and only available to the best students from each school division. The technology of schooling was different as well. Students often were seated on long benches, or "forms". The introduction of the individual desk was an advance as a means of preventing students from distracting each other. Urban schools were often early adopters of these new technologies. This meant that the Toronto Public School Board was a leader in adopting blackboards, which other school boards were slower to introduce. Teachers were also often expected to lodge in the school. In the Toronto Public School Board, provisions were made for a room for the teacher in the basements of the first six schools. At this time, secondary schools, or grammar schools, were not free. However, the Toronto Public School Board provided scholarships for the top achieving boys to attend these all-male institutions. A provincial grant incentivized the creation of school libraries, and in 1858 the board had 2,837 volumes. An 1862 motion for the introduction of gymnasiums was met with some resistance as they were considered an expensive addition outside the scope of the academic disciplines of schools. Ultimately, the Select Committee voted against the recommendation.

TPSB Industrial Schools