Laskin seeks new term

[attach]7658[/attach]Longtime Toronto District School Board trustee Shelley Laskin is seeking re-election in Ward 11 (St. Paul’s).

She filed nomination papers at city hall in mid-March.

Laskin, 57, first served the ward generally defined as Dupont Street north to Eglinton Avenue and Winona Drive east to Bayview Avenue between 1997 and 2003. She was on the TDSB’s Accommodation Review Committee, which was tasked with discovering how to maintain schools in areas with declining enrollment, before being elected as trustee again in 2010.

In an ironic twist, her third term as trustee has seen Laskin face the challenge of accommodating rising numbers of students in areas with increasing development, often with less money.

She used provincial full-day kindergarten funding to help accommodate Grade 7 and Grade 8 students added to Forest Hill’s J.R. Wilcox Community School, Cedarvale Community School, Humewood Community School and Rawlinson Community School after their programs at nearby Arlington Middle School were closed.

A highlight of her early terms was a deal she was credited with securing for North Toronto Collegiate Institute’s redevelopment, in 2002.

The $52 million cost of the new building was offset by $22 million the board realized from the sale of two parcels of land to developer Tridel, which built a pair of high-rise condominiums above the school.

More recently, Laskin was central to negotiations that secured a $2 million contract from the city to refurbish and upgrade Hodgson Senior Public School’s ice rink at 282 Davisville Ave.

“One of my primary goals will be to ensure that the school board has an appropriate source of funding, whether from the province or other means, including development charges, that allows us to address our schools’ serious ongoing renewal issues,” Laskin said.