News & Analysis

Details of charges facing TCDSB Trustee Michael Del Grande

In a discipline hearing by the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT), TCDSB Trustee Mike Del Grande is defending himself against two complaints of alleged “teacher misconduct” despite the fact he  is an elected Trustee and not a teacher, but simply happens to hold a teaching license he has never used.  

The first complaint is about a sarcastically-worded motion he read aloud at a November 7, 2019, board meeting (not a classroom) as a vehicle to demonstrate, with extreme hyberbole, the slippery slope the Board would be setting itself down if it acceded to the Ministry of Education’s request to add transgenderism to the TCDSB’s Code of Conduct as a protected ground. The OCT is claiming that the Trustee’s motion represented “teacher misconduct”

The second charge relates to a claim by a former Student Trustee who alleged that in 2019 Del Grande spoke in a rude or unduly aggressive manner to her when they were alone in the trustees lounge. That discussion following a heated, public board room debate about a pro-life movie, Unplanned, which the pro-abortion student trustee objected being shown to Catholic students. The OCT again claims the discussion between the two trustees represented “teacher misconduct”, even though it didn't happen in a classroom, and even though Del Grande was not in the act of teaching. Mike Del Grande holds that the accusation is baseless.