Ontario’s unprecedented move to send in a troubleshooter to help Toronto’s feuding school board find a way to broker peace has been welcomed by members of all factions, as well as new trustees who take office next week.

Veteran educator Margaret Wilson, appointed Tuesday by the province to review the Toronto District School Board, has also been tasked with suggesting ways the board might be restructured, amid concerns it is too big and unmanageable.

“It’s a question that’s been on my mind for four years — amalgamation welded together local boards that were mighty big boards in themselves,” said returning Trustee Pam Gough of the six local boards merged in 1998 to create Canada’s largest, and also the fourth biggest in North America.

“Is this whole system so big it’s not capable of handling itself?”

Gough said the appointment of Wilson, a former union official and registrar of the Ontario College of Teachers, to improve relations and look at whether proper processes are being followed “will help us refocus on our main job and stop the interruptions that have been such a huge distraction.”

Jennifer Story, one of the 11 new trustees who take office Monday noted many of the newcomers “ran on a platform of accountability and transparency with the aim of restoring public confidence in the TDSB . . . This is a step in the right direction.”

From accusations of tampering with documents to trustees harassing staff and one elected official facing criminal charges, alongside lingering concerns over the director’s alleged secrecy and ‘insubordination,’ Education Minister Liz Sandals said the endless string of scandals in recent months has taken its toll.

There are “almost daily examples of confrontation, obfuscation and a lack of communication,” Sandals told reporters at Queen’s Park, “and together they represent a real threat to public confidence not only in the board but the entire public education system.

“It is clear that the issues at TDSB go beyond simply competing personalities. It would be naïve to think the TDSB finds itself where it is today because of the actions of any one person or any one group of people. I am concerned that the issues at the TDSB may be symptomatic of broader governance issues.”

Wilson is to report by year’s end on the “level of co-operation” between trustees and Director of Education Donna Quan, and “help support a positive transition” for new trustees. She’ll also look at how well trustees and senior staff are performing their duties, and also whether Quan’s $289,000 salary is allowed under a provincial freeze on pay increases.

“It’s about time we got a fresh set of eyes to come in and help us address the broken relationships and rebuild confidence in the system,” said board vice-chair Shaun Chen. “We have a myriad of issues that are complex and multi-layered and it’s important we get some direction.”

Wilson will also look at the larger picture of whether there’s a better model for running the board — which could include breaking it up into smaller, more manageable chunks.

Quan, in a written statement, said she welcomes the review and “(agrees) that public confidence in our system is critical to student success and having strong school communities.

“Staff will co-operate fully with Ms. Wilson and the ministry as it moves forward with its review of operational governance, relationships and compliance at the Toronto District School Board.”

Since this group of trustees took office four years ago, the province has sent in a special assistance team to deal with financial issues and spending on construction after projects went well over budget and has ordered a forensic audit that pinpointed a number of concerns about board spending and processes.

“Despite this support, the board continues to be plagued by accusations of inappropriate behaviour, ‘insubordination’ and an ongoing ‘culture of fear’ among staff and elected trustees at the TDSB,” the education ministry said in a release.

Some wonder whether the stubborn conflicts at the board have been born in part from trustees’ frustration at having so much less say than before, given the province controls the purse-strings and most other aspects of the education system.

While amalgamation was rocky, the board itself seems to work as an educational machine, with observers from around the world coming to study how its nearly 600 schools manage to close many educational gaps — including poverty — that stump schools in other cities.

Yet at the board table, Chen noted trustees have been “grappling with the size of the board since amalgamation, so I absolutely welcome a discussion of whether there’s some way to make it more manageable through smaller chunks.”

On Tuesday, Sandals emphasized that she is not putting the board under supervision, which she described as a last resort. However, she said, “there is nothing I am announcing today to preclude that step at some point in the future.”

After all, Sandals said, the board has grown progressively more “dysfunctional” and “acrimonious” as years have gone by, “and that’s why at this point we really need to step in really right at the beginning of the new board if we are going to have any chance of success with changing the culture at the TDSB.”

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Sandals concluded that “one of the issues is, is it too big to govern . . . so we need to look at what are our other possibilities in terms of the actual structure of the board.”

Wilson told reporters she’s up to the job.

“I was thinking this morning that as a child I survived bombs falling in World War II,” she said, “so I guess I can survive the Toronto District School Board.”

A ministry spokesperson said the cost of the review is still unclear.