Clayton La Touche has been removed from his role as the TDSB’s director of education
Board supervisor Rohit Gupta said the board needed a fresh start
After less than a year as the Toronto District School Board’s director of education, Clayton La Touche has been let go. Provincially appointed board supervisor Rohit Gupta made the announcement in a letter to TDSB staff this morning, according to CP24.
“After much consideration, I, together with the Minister of Education, have made the difficult decision to make a leadership change,” said Gupta in the letter. “To that end, director of education Clayton La Touche will be leaving the TDSB, effective immediately.” Gupta also said in the letter that the TDSB needed “a fresh start,” which La Touche’s exit would make way for.
Gupta himself has not been in the role for long, having taken the post in June after Education Minister Paul Calandra claimed that an audit had found the board’s finances to be in disarray.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles criticized Gupta’s decision to get rid of La Touche, noting that La Touche has actual education credentials while Gupta does not. (Gupta’s background is in public policy and finance.) “I think parents are going to have some big concerns about that,” Stiles told CP24. She also questioned how much taxpayers would have to cover in severance pay.
Associate director Stacey Zucker will replace La Touche at the TDSB in an interim role.
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Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
