In a move that has rocked Canada’s largest school board, director of education Donna Quan has stepped down to lead a research study for Queen’s Park on how school boards can get better demographic snapshots of their students.

Quan broke the news to stunned trustees Monday afternoon at a private meeting of the Toronto District School Board.

It’s a move insiders say the province felt was necessary for the TDSB to move forward — to replace the often controversial Quan with a new, less divisive leader — but which also puts her experience and expertise in educational equity to good use.

The ministry of education has hired the 57-year-old educator to work with York University to study the feasibility of requiring all boards to do the sort of detailed demographic survey of students that the TDSB has pioneered, so boards and the province can better tailor their policies to students’ needs.

But the appointment to lead the 20-month study, which runs from Dec. 14, 2015 to Aug. 31, 2017, also removes Quan from Canada’s largest school board for the remainder of her contract, which ends in the spring of 2017.

It comes at a time when board turmoil appeared to have quieted down, after the election of 11 new trustees last November and the naming of new Chair Robin Pilkey in August — yet some sources said Quan’s leadership remained a lingering sore point for some at the board.

Pilkey called Quan a “passionate and committed advocate for public education . . . It has been a pleasure working with her and I wish her all the best as she moves to the next chapter of her career,” she said in a statement.

In a letter sent Monday night to employees, Quan said “it is with mixed emotions” that she leaves to be seconded to the ministry as a senior adviser‎ to the deputy minister of education.

“Over the past 30 years, it has been an honour and a privilege to serve this dynamic and inclusive organization in various roles...”

Despite the controversies that often dogged her, Quan won praise from some for pushing staff to complete report cards last June despite a teacher work-to-rule campaign, at a time when many other boards were simply letting them go unsent.

For their part, York officials say they’re delighted to have Quan, whose career has focused on the needs of diverse students.

“We’re excited about this — Donna Quan is a seasoned educator with 30 years’ experience who will be a good leader,” said Ron Owston, York’s dean of education. The ministry has given York $300,000 for the project, which will pay for research costs and for a research associate to work with Quan, who will be an adjunct professor at York’s faculty of education, but not an employee of the university.

Pilkey explained that the ministry will pay Quan's $272,000-a-year salary for the remaining year and a half of her contract, as it has “seconded” her services from the board.

Quan told reporters Monday night she was “excited to lead the project — when the opportunity came my way to influence the provincial direction, it was an opportunity I wanted to pursue.”

TDSB trustees will now have to strike a committee to find a successor and name an acting interim director.

Quan is not the first director to leave before finishing her contract. The TDSB’s first director, Marguerite Jackson, left under a cloud of controversy over a $360,000 severance package. Her successor, David Reid — who was hired within months — was appointed in 2002, but left after three years amid tense relations with trustees and parents. The board continued to pay his salary, about $230,000 a year, until 2007 when he was re-assigned to do research for the University of Toronto. He was replaced by Gerry Connelly, who later retired and was replaced by Chris Spence, who resigned in disgrace in January 2013 over a plagiarism scandal.

Quan was named interim director and later won the position as Spence’s replacement, yet even her appointment was touched by controversy; it took two long meetings for trustees, strongly divided on even giving her the job, to agree on her title.

Some privately worried she lacked the leadership qualities of communication and diplomacy, especially by appearing to have taken sides in trustee feuds.

However her supporters noted she set ambitious standards, pledging to boost the number of students passing Ontario’s standardized tests in reading, writing and math by 10 to 15 percentage points in one year. She promised more science, technology and math programming and improved education for First Nations students and wanted more low-income students enrolled in French immersion and gifted programs, where they are under-represented.

Controversy around Quan grew last winter, when she refused to make her contract public, and three trustees, including then-chair Mari Rutka, asked Queen’s Park to step in and referee the dispute.

Quan and other senior staff, in turn, complained of harassment and intimidation by elected officials. Veteran Trustee Howard Goodman was arrested recently for forcible confinement and criminal harassment of Quan, although the charges were later dropped.

Quan also delayed giving back $17,000 of her $289,000 salary, which Education Minister Liz Sandals had noted violated a provincial salary freeze.

Quan grew up in Unionville as a second-generation Chinese Canadian, and has worked as a Toronto educator since 1985. Married with three grown daughters, she earned her teaching degree and a master’s in education at the University of Toronto, starting to teach in 1983.

Trustee Pamela Gough once praised Quan for being an effective leader in tough circumstances. “She performed superbly during the ice storm last winter; she opened up the schools as shelters and never stopped. She even brought breakfast in for people in the shelters.”

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But even Gough complained last year there had been “a breakdown in the relationship between the chair and the director, the most important relationship in the entire board.”

The focus of the York research project will be on how all school boards might adapt a uniform demographic survey for students — what sort of questions to ask, and how often. The TDSB’s extensive survey asks everything from background family information to how students feel about school and teachers, and safety.

The idea would be to take this demographic information and crunch it with achievement data “to identify gaps,” said Owston. The idea was accelerated by the scrapping of Canada’s long-form census, said Owston, but still pertains even though the new federal government has promised to restore the census.

Timeline of turmoil at TDSB

With files from Kristin Rushowy

January 2013: Chris Spence resigns as director of education amid plagiarism scandal involving articles, books and passages of his doctoral thesis.

October 2013: Donna Quan named education director following stint as interim director.

March 2014: TDSB chair requests police presence at meetings after staff complain of feeling intimated and harassed by trustees.

March 2014: Trustee Howard Goodman apologizes for behaviour after Quan and senior staff complain after an outburst.

November 2014: Goodman charged with forcible confinement and criminal harassment after alleged incident involving Quan, although the charges were later dropped.

November 2014: Ministry sends in troubleshooter Margaret Wilson to seek solutions to growing dysfunction at board.

January 2015: Wilson decries culture of fear at board, slams trustees and chastises Quan for not producing her contract when asked. Her scathing report to the province, criticizing trustees for overpaying Quan — $17,000 above what Spence earned.

January 2015: TDSB moves to roll back Quan’s salary, from $289,000 to $272,000 so it would comply with wage freeze legislation.

March 2015: Education Minister Liz Sandals creates advisory panel to look at future of board, even considering breaking it into smaller boards.