School Board Trustee

School board trustees are responsible for setting the overall direction of the school board, not the day-to-day operations of schools.

Key responsibilities include:

• Setting policies and priorities for the board
• Approving the board’s annual budget
• Hiring and evaluating the Director of Education
• Representing the interests of students, families and the community
• Participating in board and committee meetings

Trustees work collaboratively as part of a team to make decisions that benefit the entire school system.

In Ontario, there are four types of publicly funded school boards:

• English Public
• English Separate (Catholic)
• French Public
• French Separate (Catholic)

When you run, you must choose one board and one geographic area.

To run for school board trustee, you must meet the following requirements under the Municipal Elections Act:

You must:

• Be at least 18 years old
• Be a Canadian citizen
• Reside in the school board’s area of jurisdiction OR be an owner or tenant of land there (or the spouse of such person)
• Not be legally prohibited from voting
• Not be disqualified by any other legislation   

For Catholic boards, you must also:

• Be Roman Catholic
• Be listed as a separate school supporter for school board purposes

Each school board jurisdiction has a designated municipality for receiving nominations. This means, you must file your nomination with the Clerk of the designated municipality, not necessarily your home municipality.

To run for a school board trustee position in South Glengarry’s geographic jurisdiction, you will need to file your nomination with the following offices:

• English Public: Township of South Stormont
• English Separate: City of Cornwall
• French Public: City of Cornwall
• French Separate: Township of North Glengarry