Two in five of Ontario’s trustee seats were settled without a vote, and some of the races that were contested came down to a handful of votes. Where unions and labour councils endorsed candidates, their candidates and the winners were largely the same people.
Summary
Ontario elected the trustees of its 72 district school boards on 26 October 2026. There is no province-wide results page: each municipal clerk posts the count for its own part of each trustee area. School Board Research gathered those counts for all 657 seats and has published them, area by area, on its Trustee Election Results 2026 page (School Board Research 2026a). This article sets out what the counts show, and whether candidates endorsed or rated by outside organizations won more often than the candidates they ran against.
- 272 of the 657 seats (41 per cent) were settled when nominations closed, without a vote. At the French-language boards, two seats in three were.
- Many of the races that did go to a vote were close. In 14 of the 267 contested areas with complete counts, the last seat was decided by 50 votes or fewer, and in one by a single vote. In areas with complete counts, sitting trustees who faced a vote kept 169 of 211 seats.
- Candidates endorsed by unions and labour councils won 55 of 80 contested races (69 per cent); the other candidates in the same areas won 35 of 194 (18 per cent). The gap held for new candidates, 38 of 60 against 20 of 173, and outside Toronto.
- Endorsements from Parents as First Educators and ratings from Campaign Life Coalition showed no such gap within races, although more trustees with that backing were elected than had run as sitting trustees.
1. What this means for parents
Trustees approve the policies that govern a child’s school, including the code of conduct, the bullying prevention plan, the accessibility plan and the board’s budget. The trustees elected on 26 October 2026 take office on 15 November 2026 for a four-year term (Municipal Elections Act, 1996, s. 6(1)).
- Many families had no choice to make. In 241 of 526 trustee areas, the trustee was decided when nominations closed, and at six boards every seat was filled that way (section 3).
- A few votes can decide who sets a board’s policies. In 22 contested areas the last seat was decided by 100 votes or fewer (section 4).
- Many boards will have new trustees. At least 285 of the 657 seats will be held by someone who was not a sitting trustee before the election (section 5).
- Endorsements are public, and some lined up closely with the results. Where a union or labour council endorsed, its candidates won far more often than the candidates they ran against. Every endorsement counted here was published by the endorser and is listed with its source in the References (section 6).
- Every result is on one page. The results page shows, for every trustee area at all 72 boards, who was elected and the votes each candidate received.
2. What earlier research has found
Research on school board elections in Canada is limited. Writing about municipal elections, Robert MacDermid observed that “the number of research articles on aspects of municipal elections in Canada is limited” (MacDermid 2006, 2), and school board races have drawn less attention still. A study of Ontario’s 2018 school board elections found that women do very well in them, while racialized candidates run in significant numbers but “fare exceptionally poorly” (Davidson, McGregor and Siemiatycki 2020). In Calgary’s 2017 public school board election, who voted varied with gender, education, ideology, partisanship and whether the voter was a parent (McGregor and Lucas 2019). Writing about Quebec in 1997, Proulx found that more than 70 per cent of school board seats were filled by acclamation, and that turnout where there was a vote was about 20 per cent at most (Proulx 1997). In Ontario, there have been cases of trustee positions acclaimed for lack of interest (Li 2015, 6). In an account of a Saskatoon trustee campaign, several constituents said they voted mainly on name recognition (Mueller 2011, 222). Across nearly 2,000 Canadian municipal elections, incumbency raised a candidate’s chance of winning the next election by more than 30 percentage points (Lucas 2021).
On endorsements, the research is American. Union-endorsed school board candidates win about 70 per cent of contested races, a rate that has held roughly steady for two decades (Moe 2006 and Hartney 2022, cited in Hartney and Kogan 2025). In survey experiments, telling voters about a union endorsement increased support for the endorsed candidate, by an amount that can be as large as the effect of shared party affiliation; the same study found that unions’ decisions to back sitting trustees followed increases in teacher pay rather than gains in student achievement (Hartney and Kogan 2025). School Board Research found no published study of union, labour council or advocacy-group endorsements in Ontario school board elections.
3. Seats settled without a vote
Of 526 trustee areas, 241 were settled when nominations closed. In 240 of them, the number of candidates matched the number of seats and every candidate was acclaimed. In the other, Zone D of the Northeastern Catholic District School Board, one candidate was nominated for two seats, so one seat drew no candidate at all. In total, 272 of the 657 seats (41 per cent) were settled without a vote: 271 by acclamation and one left without a candidate. Of the 271 trustees acclaimed, 185 were sitting trustees.
How often this happened depended on the board system (Figure 1). At the English public boards, 28 per cent of seats were settled without a vote; at the English Catholic boards, 45 per cent; at the French Catholic and French public boards, two in three. At six boards, every seat was acclaimed: the Conseil scolaire public du Grand Nord de l’Ontario and the Huron-Superior Catholic, Kenora Catholic, Renfrew County Catholic, Renfrew County and Rainy River district school boards. At twelve boards, including the Toronto, Peel, York Region, Ottawa-Carleton and Durham district school boards, every seat went to a vote. For the families in an acclaimed area, the trustee who will approve their board’s policies for the next four years was decided before anyone voted.
4. Close races and slow counts
The full results are on the Trustee Election Results 2026 page: for every trustee area at all 72 boards, who was elected, the votes each candidate received as the clerks published them, and which seats were acclaimed. This article draws on the same counts.
Many of the contested races were close. Of the 267 contested areas with complete counts, the last seat was decided by 10 votes or fewer in 4, by 50 or fewer in 14 and by 100 or fewer in 22 (Figure 2). In Greenstone, for the Conseil scolaire de district catholique des Aurores boréales, the second seat went to Francine Marcotte Roy by one vote, 68 to 67. In Zone 5 of the Sudbury Catholic District School Board the margin was 6 votes, and in Zone 5 of the Conseil scolaire de district catholique du Nouvel-Ontario it was also 6 (1,264 to 1,258). In the City of Guelph Wards 1 and 5, at the Upper Grand District School Board, the second seat was decided by 17 votes, and in Barrie Wards 4, 5 and 6, at the Simcoe County District School Board, a sitting trustee lost by 19. Where the margin is this small, a few dozen neighbours decided who will set the board’s policies for the next four years.
Some counts were slow. Of the 285 contested areas, 232 were complete on election night, 35 more within 24 hours of the polls closing, and 18 were still not complete at the 24-hour mark (8 pm on 27 October 2026). Most of the slow areas were in Niagara (5) and eastern Ontario (7). A trustee area often spans several municipalities, each posting its own part of the count, and the area is not complete until the last one posts. The results page marks the areas that were not complete, with what each clerk’s page said.
5. Sitting trustees
Of the 408 sitting trustees who stood again, 185 were acclaimed. In the 267 contested areas with complete counts, 169 of 211 sitting trustees were re-elected (80 per cent), and new candidates won 196 of 691 races (28 per cent). If every candidate in each area had had an equal chance, sitting trustees would have been expected to win about 106 seats and new candidates about 259. Sitting trustees won 1.6 times their equal share, and new candidates three quarters of theirs. Across all areas, 43 sitting trustees were defeated. Research on Canadian municipal elections also finds a large incumbency advantage (Lucas 2021).
Even so, many boards will see new faces. Counting seats filled by acclamation and seats decided by a vote, at least 285 of the 657 seats will be held by someone who was not a sitting trustee before the election: 86 acclaimed and 199 elected, two of them former trustees returning. Sitting trustees hold 358 seats, one seat drew no candidate, and 13 seats were still to be decided at the 24-hour mark.
6. Endorsements and ratings
School Board Research recorded 536 public endorsements and ratings of 347 candidates on 47 boards, each read on the endorser’s own website or public social media post, with the source and the date seen. Teachers’ and education workers’ unions, union coalitions and labour councils endorsed candidates in Toronto, York Region, Durham, Peel, Simcoe, Waterloo Region, Wellington-Dufferin, Ottawa, the Kawartha Pine Ridge area, Hastings and Prince Edward, Upper Canada and Brantford. Parents as First Educators (PAFE) published lists of endorsed candidates, mostly for Catholic boards. Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) published ratings of 279 candidates, favourable and unfavourable. Progress Toronto and the Armenian National Committee of Toronto each endorsed a small number of candidates in Toronto and York Region.
Endorsers often back sitting trustees, and sitting trustees win most races anyway. So each group’s candidates are compared with the other candidates in the same trustee areas, and sitting trustees and new candidates are also counted separately. Only contested areas with complete counts are used (Table 1).
| Endorsed or rated by | Areas | Endorsed or rated: elected | Others in the same areas: elected | New candidates only: endorsed against others |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unions and labour councils | 64 | 55 of 80 | 35 of 194 | 38 of 60 against 20 of 173 |
| Toronto boards (TDSB, TCDSB) | 18 | 17 of 18 | 1 of 71 | 7 of 8 against 1 of 69 |
| Other boards | 46 | 38 of 62 | 34 of 123 | 31 of 52 against 19 of 104 |
| Progress Toronto | 6 | 6 of 6 | 0 of 37 | 3 of 3 against 0 of 36 |
| Armenian National Committee of Toronto | 4 | 4 of 4 | 0 of 14 | 2 of 2 against 0 of 14 |
| Parents as First Educators | 68 | 39 of 86 | 56 of 144 | 18 of 62 against 31 of 114 |
| CLC, favourable rating | 103 | 54 of 136 | 99 of 273 | 30 of 105 against 56 of 223 |
| CLC, unfavourable rating | 52 | 31 of 58 | 49 of 175 | 6 of 27 against 29 of 153 |
The union and labour council result is large, and it holds for new candidates and outside Toronto (Figure 3). Endorsed new candidates won 63 per cent of their races; other new candidates in the same races won 12 per cent. In Toronto, the labour slate and the winners were nearly the same list: 17 of 18 endorsed candidates won, and 1 of 71 others.
The results vary by endorser (Table 2). The Elementary Teachers of Toronto and the Ottawa-Carleton OSSTF district saw every endorsed candidate elected, while two of the eight endorsed by the OSSTF Simcoe teachers’ unit, and eight of the fifteen recommended by Together In Education in Waterloo Region, won. At the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, one of the four candidates endorsed by the Dufferin-Peel secondary teachers’ unit was elected.
| Endorser | Areas | Endorsed: elected | Others in the same areas: elected |
|---|---|---|---|
| CUPE Local 4400 (Toronto education workers) | 18 | 17 of 18 | 1 of 71 |
| Toronto and York Region Labour Council | 14 | 13 of 14 | 1 of 64 |
| Elementary Teachers of Toronto (ETFO) | 10 | 10 of 10 | 0 of 57 |
| Campaign for Public Education (same slate as Elementary Teachers of Toronto) | 10 | 10 of 10 | 0 of 57 |
| Labour-endorsed list published by OPSEU/SEFPO | 22 | 22 of 28 | 8 of 95 |
| Durham Region Labour Council | 5 | 8 of 10 | 4 of 18 |
| Together In Education Waterloo (union coalition) | 6 | 8 of 15 | 9 of 28 |
| OSSTF District 17 Simcoe, teachers’ unit | 8 | 2 of 8 | 6 of 17 |
| KPR ETFO | 5 | 5 of 7 | 4 of 8 |
| Wellington-Dufferin Education Affiliates Committee | 5 | 5 of 6 | 2 of 7 |
| OSSTF District 25 Ottawa-Carleton | 4 | 4 of 4 | 0 of 7 |
| Dufferin-Peel OECTA Elementary Unit | 4 | 2 of 4 | 2 of 7 |
| DPSU OECTA (Dufferin-Peel secondary) | 4 | 1 of 4 | 3 of 7 |
| Peel Regional Labour Council | 4 | 2 of 4 | 2 of 8 |
| OSSTF District 26 Upper Canada | 2 | 1 of 2 | 1 of 3 |
| Brantford District Labour Council | 1 | 0 of 1 | 4 of 6 |
The PAFE and favourable CLC results sit close to the rate for the other candidates in the same races, for sitting trustees and new candidates alike (Figure 4). Candidates CLC rated unfavourably won more often than others in their races, but most of that gap comes from how many of them were sitting trustees: counted separately, the rates are close.
That does not mean the number of trustees with that backing stood still. Counting candidates PAFE endorsed or CLC rated favourably, 44 sitting trustees stood again; 37 kept their seats and 7 lost. Another 34 candidates with that backing who were not sitting trustees won seats, 31 by election and 3 by acclamation, so 71 of the trustees elected so far had it: 51 on Catholic boards and 20 on public boards, where 9 sitting trustees with that backing had stood. How many sitting trustees who did not stand again shared those positions cannot be told, because PAFE and CLC endorsed or rated only 2026 candidates. The change came from new candidates winning seats; within contested races, candidates with that backing did not win a larger share than the other candidates they ran against.
These are associations. They do not show that an endorsement won a race. Unions and labour councils may choose candidates who were already likely to win, and in Toronto the same candidates carried several labour endorsements at once. What the results do show is that, where unions and labour councils endorsed, their candidates and the winners were largely the same people, and that the endorsements and ratings published by PAFE and CLC did not line up with the results in the same way.
7. What a parent can do
- Find your trustee on the Trustee Election Results 2026 page. Choose your board to see every trustee area, the candidates and the votes.
- Read who endorsed your trustee on the endorser’s own page. Every endorsement counted in this article is listed under References, with a Wayback Machine capture where one could be made.
- Write to your trustee. Trustees represent the people who elect them, and a parent can write to them at any time without the school’s permission.
- Read your board’s policies and published documents on the Board Report Card, which reports what each board publishes against the provincial requirements.
- If a result on the results page does not match what your municipal clerk has posted, write to info@schoolboardresearch.ca. Each correction is checked against the clerk’s published count.
8. Data, method and limitations
Results. Counts posted by each nominating municipality, copied as published, read in passes on 27 October 2026 up to the 24-hour mark (8 pm). Seventeen areas rest on official certificates and the rest on unofficial election-night counts. At the last pass, 16 areas were partly counted and 2 not posted, leaving 28 candidates’ results unknown; they are left out of the comparisons. One Stratford candidate reported to be ineligible is also left out. Where an area was decided on partial counts, or a clerk’s page left a question open, the results page says so. The figures will not match official results exactly where a clerk later corrects a count.
Endorsements and ratings. Read on each endorser’s public website or public social media posts on 27 October 2026, with the source recorded for each. An endorsement not published by the endorser is not counted, and an endorsement stated only on a candidate’s own page is not counted. One union’s list is behind a member login and was not read. Lists read after voting day were checked against posts made before it: for example, the Durham Region Labour Council posted its trustee endorsements on Facebook on 16 September 2026, and the Toronto and York Region Labour Council posted its slate on 26 October 2026, before the polls closed. Facebook posts cannot be captured by the Wayback Machine.
Ratings. Ratings are not endorsements. CLC’s ratings are sorted by School Board Research from CLC’s own wording: favourable means Supportable; Pro-life, pro-family; Pro-parental rights; or Pro-life, pro-parental rights. Unfavourable means Not supportable; Pro-LGBT ideology; or Pro-LGBT ideology, anti-parental rights. Every other rating counts as other. Ratings are matched without regard to capital letters, and a rating CLC misspells is counted as the rating it spells.
Comparison. Each group’s candidates are compared with the other candidates in the same trustee areas; the comparison group can include candidates endorsed by other groups. “Expected with an equal chance” adds, for each candidate, the number of seats in the area divided by the number of candidates. The Campaign for Public Education’s Toronto slate is counted with the unions and labour councils; it is the same slate as the Elementary Teachers of Toronto’s and adds no candidates. Counts for some groups and endorsers are small. Large language models were used to assist with retrieval and drafting; every figure was checked against its source. The method is a written method, available on request.
References
Municipal Elections Act, 1996, S.O. 1996, c. 32, s. 6(1). https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/96m32
Davidson, Adrienne M., R. Michael McGregor and Myer Siemiatycki. 2020. “Gender, Race and Political Ambition: The Case of Ontario School Board Elections.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 53 (2): 461-475. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423919001057
Hartney, Michael T., and Vladimir Kogan. 2025. “The Politics of Teachers’ Union Endorsements.” American Journal of Political Science 69 (3): 1163-1179. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12922
Li, Xiaobin. 2015. “Ontario Education Governance 1995 to the Present: More Accountability, More Regulation, and More Centralization?” Journal of International Education and Leadership 5 (1).
Lucas, Jack. 2021. “The Size and Sources of Municipal Incumbency Advantage in Canada.” Urban Affairs Review 57 (2): 373-401. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087419879234
MacDermid, Robert. 2006. “Funding Municipal Elections in the Toronto Region.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Toronto. https://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2006/MacDermid.pdf
McGregor, R. Michael, and Jack Lucas. 2019. “Who Has School Spirit? Explaining Voter Participation in School Board Elections.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 52 (4): 923-936. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423919000088
Mueller, Robin. 2011. “Seeking Election: Evaluating a Campaign for Public School Board Trusteeship.” Canadian Journal of Education 34 (3): 213-228. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ946092.pdf
Proulx, Jean-Pierre. 1997. “Le système électoral scolaire : place à la démocratie des usagers.” Politique et Sociétés 16 (2): 145-173. https://doi.org/10.7202/040070ar
School Board Research. 2026a. Trustee Election Results 2026. https://schoolboardresearch.ca/election-2026/results/
School Board Research. 2026b. Board Report Card. https://schoolboardresearch.ca/board-report-card/
Endorser sources
Armenian National Committee of Toronto. 2026. 2026 Municipal Election Endorsement Series, 11 October. https://www.facebook.com/ANCToronto. Facebook post, read 27 October 2026; the Wayback Machine does not capture Facebook pages.
Brantford District Labour Council. 2026. BDLC 2026 municipal election endorsements. https://www.brantforddistrictlabourcouncil.ca/bdlc-2026-municipal-election-endorsments.html. Wayback Machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20261028004131/https://www.brantforddistrictlabourcouncil.ca/bdlc-2026-municipal-election-endorsments.html
Campaign for Public Education. 2026. Endorsed candidates for the Toronto District School Board. https://campaignforpubliceducation.ca/. Wayback Machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20261028003947/https://campaignforpubliceducation.ca/
Campaign Life Coalition. 2026. Compare Candidates: Ontario school board trustees (English Catholic, English public, French Catholic and French public area pages). https://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/compare-candidates. Each area page read was captured by the Wayback Machine on 28 October 2026.
CUPE Local 4400. 2026. 2026 endorsed TCDSB candidates. https://cupe4400.org/latest-news/2026-endorsed-tcdsb-candidates/. Wayback Machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20261028004025/https://cupe4400.org/latest-news/2026-endorsed-tcdsb-candidates/
CUPE Local 4400. 2026. 2026 endorsed TDSB trustee candidates. https://cupe4400.org/latest-news/2026-endorsed-tdsb-trustee-candidates/. Wayback Machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20261028004046/https://cupe4400.org/latest-news/2026-endorsed-tdsb-trustee-candidates/
DPSU OECTA (Dufferin-Peel Secondary Unit). 2026. DPSU trustee endorsements, 4 October. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1431763075720195. Facebook post, read 27 October 2026; the Wayback Machine does not capture Facebook pages.
Dufferin-Peel (OECTA) Elementary Unit. 2026. News: trustee endorsements. https://elemdp.com/news/. Wayback Machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20261028004018/https://elemdp.com/news/
Durham Region Labour Council. 2026. 2026 municipal election endorsements. https://durhamlabour.ca/2026-municipal-election-endorsements/. Wayback Machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20261028004114/https://durhamlabour.ca/2026-municipal-election-endorsements/
Durham Region Labour Council. 2026. Trustee endorsements, 16 September. https://www.facebook.com/DurhamRegionLabour/posts/pfbid0y2CxJx4fFYHfYZux11BD3g2iDG7VSdbHG1zp6PZG3Eeu6mMeYCbeEXKabURAAPHXl. Facebook post, read 27 October 2026; the Wayback Machine does not capture Facebook pages.
Elementary Teachers of Toronto. 2026. 2026 trustee endorsements. https://ett.ca/trustee-endorsements/. Wayback Machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20261028003938/https://ett.ca/trustee-endorsements/
KPR ETFO News & Events. 2026. School board elections matter, 9 October. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1387975819991579. Facebook post, read 27 October 2026; the Wayback Machine does not capture Facebook pages.
OPSEU/SEFPO. 2026. On Monday, get out and vote for strong labour rights and public services! 26 October. https://opseu.org/on-monday-get-out-and-vote-for-strong-labour-rights-and-public-services/. The Wayback Machine capture shows only a security check page.
OSSTF District 17 Simcoe, Teachers’ Bargaining Unit. 2026. Endorsed Trustee Candidate #1 to #8, 18 to 25 October. https://www.facebook.com/osstfd17tbu. Facebook post, read 27 October 2026; the Wayback Machine does not capture Facebook pages.
OSSTF District 25 Ottawa-Carleton (posted by Student Support Professionals D25 OSSTF). 2026. Endorsed OCDSB trustee candidates, 16 October. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61568116913780. Facebook post, read 27 October 2026; the Wayback Machine does not capture Facebook pages.
OSSTF District 26 Upper Canada. 2026. OSSTF District 26 proudly endorses, 16 October. https://www.facebook.com/District26OSSTF. Facebook post, read 27 October 2026; the Wayback Machine does not capture Facebook pages.
Parents as First Educators. 2026. List of PAFE’s endorsed candidates for school board trustee (Catholic). https://www.pafe.ca/catholic_school_boards_2026. Wayback Machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20261028004327/https://www.pafe.ca/catholic_school_boards_2026
Parents as First Educators. 2026. Ontario public school boards 2026. https://www.pafe.ca/ontario_catholic_school_boards_2026. Wayback Machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20261028004347/https://www.pafe.ca/ontario_catholic_school_boards_2026
Peel Regional Labour Council. 2026. PRLC is proud to endorse (trustee candidates), 21 September. https://www.facebook.com/PeelLabour. Facebook post, read 27 October 2026; the Wayback Machine does not capture Facebook pages.
Progress Toronto. 2026. Progressive Champions. https://www.progresstoronto.ca/progressive-champions. Wayback Machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20261028004350/https://www.progresstoronto.ca/progressive-champions
Together In Education Waterloo. 2026. Trustee recommendations, 8 October. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61582495861378. Facebook post, read 27 October 2026; the Wayback Machine does not capture Facebook pages.
Toronto & York Region Labour Council. 2026. Municipal Election 2026 Endorsements. https://ugmofgjl.elementor.cloud/municipal-election-2026-endorsements/. Wayback Machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20261028004117/https://ugmofgjl.elementor.cloud/municipal-election-2026-endorsements/
Toronto & York Region Labour Council. 2026. Trustee slate, 26 October. https://www.facebook.com/LabourCouncil/posts/pfbid02eJz4UaivmhS5FbE8kbxSnqJMh2euGnknKFwwm4vESxwWANEr52KRQxkLyHoMEBRHl. Facebook post, read 27 October 2026; the Wayback Machine does not capture Facebook pages.
Wellington-Dufferin Education Affiliates Committee (posted by OSSTF OTBU District 18). 2026. Trustee endorsements, 15 October. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561330478573. Facebook post, read 27 October 2026; the Wayback Machine does not capture Facebook pages.
Legal disclaimer. School Board Research is not a law firm, its researchers are not lawyers, and nothing in this article is legal advice. A reader who needs advice about their own situation should consult a lawyer.
School Board Research publishes independent analysis of Ontario school board data and policy. We are not lawyers, and nothing in this publication is legal advice. If you identify an error, please write to info@schoolboardresearch.ca. Corrections are noted on the page where they are made.