The Toronto District School Board paid departing Education Director Donna Quan close to a staggering $600,000 when she left last December, roughly half of it in unused vacation days over her 14 years as a manager with the board, and the rest of it her salary.

The payout, long a source of bitter rumour among some disgruntled staff, was confirmed Thursday when the Ontario government published its annual Sunshine List of salary disclosures of public sector employees who earn more than $100,000 a year.

The list shows Quan, who was seconded to Queen’s Park after a turbulent tenure as TDSB director, earned $587,225.40 in 2015, of which only $272,000 was her salary — which already had been rolled back by an infamous $17,000 in January 2015 to conform with a provincial wage freeze.

The remaining $315,225.40 was a payout from the board for “unused vacation days that were owed to her as per her employment agreements during the 14 years she was a supervisory officer,” said board spokesperson Ryan Bird in a statement Thursday afternoon.

As a supervisory officer, Quan would have been entitled to 30 paid vacation days per year, and up to 10 days of “lieu time” for working on her off-hours. The fact the payout is the equivalent of more than a year of vacation days suggests Quan was permitted to carry over unused vacation days year after year, and that holidays often were taken as “lieu time” for working extra hours on weekends and evenings and school holidays.

“As the director left the board this past December, the board opted to pay out the unused vacation days in the 2015 fiscal year,” said the board statement, “which results in an inflated number that is higher than her annual salary of $272,000.”

As well, the Sunshine List showed Quan was paid another $20,062.04 in taxable benefits.

Quan could not be reached for comment Thursday. She is now working with York University to study the feasibility of requiring all boards to do the sort of detailed demographic student survey the TDSB has pioneered, so schools can better serve students’ needs.

The appointment of Quan to lead the 20-month study, which runs from December 2015 to August 2017, removed her from Canada’s largest school board for the remainder of her contract, which ends in the spring of 2017.

Quan was considered by many at the TDSB as a strong educator committed to the needs of highly diverse students, but her management style was said by others to be divisive. She drew fire for being slow to give back the $17,000 in salary that exceeded Ontario’s wage freeze.

With files from Kristin Rushowy