Fiduciary Duty: Why School Trustees Protect the System, Not the Students

If you're waiting for the Board of Education to protect students, you’ll be waiting a long time

Many families believe that if they take their concerns to the Board of Education, someone will finally listen. That once trustees hear about what’s happening, they’ll step in and fix the harm. It’s an understandable hope, but one that rarely leads to change.

What most people don’t realize is that school trustees are not there to advocate for individual students. They are there to protect the school district.

By law, trustees have a fiduciary duty. That means they are legally required to act in the best interests of the district, not individual students or families. Their role is to support the system, not question or challenge it. Even when they know it’s causing harm.

Even when trustees care deeply, they are bound by law to uphold the district’s policies and decisions. They must protect the district’s reputation. If they speak out in ways that could damage the district’s image—even if it’s the truth—they risk being seen as breaking their legal responsibilities.

This is all laid out in the School Act, which trustees are required to uphold. 

Section 11 gives the Board of Education the power to hear appeals when a school employee makes a decision that significantly affects a student’s education, health, or safety. On paper, this makes the board look like a place where families can seek fairness and accountability. But in reality, the same people who are tasked with protecting the district are the ones hearing your appeal.

Trustees must follow board rules, protect confidentiality, and act only as part of the corporate board. Individually, they have no power. And legally, they are expected to maintain the system, even when the system is failing students.

This is why so many families walk away from the appeal process feeling frustrated, dismissed, or blamed. The appeal process offers hope, but hope can become a dangerous weapon when it simply adds another layer of delay, another barrier, and another way to make families feel like they are the problem. It creates the illusion of accountability while protecting the very structure that caused the harm.

And this is why real change will never come from within structures that are designed to protect themselves. Trustees cannot fix a system they are legally required to preserve. That work falls to us.

Families must document everything. Know your rights, demand transparency, and speak the truth—collectively and publicly. 

Let’s stop waiting for someone else to fix what was never built for inclusion in the first place. Let’s start naming what’s really happening, and build the pressure that forces change from the outside in.

Because protecting children should matter more than protecting institutions. Always.