Suddenly, it's all about boys in Toronto public schools.

Weeks after taking the reins of Canada's largest school board, education director Chris Spence has brought his trademark focus on boys to a sweeping "Vision of Hope!" he unveiled Tuesday evening to trustees.

The one-time football player says he wants the board to launch a number of single-sex classes, boy-friendly programs and an all-male alternative school to try to boost male learning and cut boys' dropout rate.

It is among a range of priorities he sets for the Toronto District School Board, as well as going green, turning digital, balancing the books and cutting violence.

"The last thing I want to do is demonize our boys, but all around we see great concerns about their learning," he said, citing lower test scores than girls and more acting out. To level the playing field for boys, he suggests, "might require differentiated treatment."

Next September, he wants the board to open a Male Leadership Academy for boys from kindergarten to Grade 3 as a sort of alternative school or "school of choice," and add a grade each year, with many, if not all teachers being male.

Moreover, he wants to launch 300 "demonstration classrooms" across the city to showcase the best ways of teaching, including classrooms he calls "boy-friendly."

"Boys thrive in environments that are hands-on and where there is opportunity to move around," he said, citing portable desks that let children be more mobile, and clipboards rather than notebooks so students feel less tied to a desk.

"When every bone in a boy's body says `Move!' we're (usually) saying `Sit down.'."

The Toronto board has a handful of single-sex classrooms and an all-girls high school for students at risk, but Spence wants to expand the model, which he promoted at two schools in Hamilton.

"Male teachers would be value-added," he said, citing the importance of male mentors for boys, particularly in communities where father figures are absent.

"They say a boy without a father figure is like an explorer without a map," said Spence, who has pioneered mentoring programs for boys.

"One of the most reliable predictors of whether a boy will succeed or fail in high school rests on a single question: does he have a man in his life to look up to?"

The advocacy group People for Education has raised concerns about specialty schools "because of the tendency for that to divide populations, as opposed to bringing populations together," said spokesperson Annie Kidder, citing research in Britain and Canada that shows a system of specialty schools can lead to "a fair amount of social segregation."

Toronto board chair John Campbell said he expects Spence's plan to meet with little resistance next week when it comes up for approval by trustees. "We went through a long search to get a very capable agent of change, and we got one."

The scope of the report, presented to the board's planning and priorities committee Tuesday, is broad.

Spence says he wants all schools wireless by 2015.

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He wants 20 per cent fewer students suspended each year, 20 per cent less violence and 40 per cent fewer expulsions.

And Spence will propose the board begin a community review of the future of schools in eight different neighbourhoods where declining enrolment is a problem, to be named next week. These reviews would give priority to keeping open schools from kindergarten to Grade 8, rather than middle schools and junior high schools.

"I am deeply committed to the model of kindergarten-to-Grade 8 which the board adopted as a model last year and which presents fewer transitions for children," said Spence.

Spence's plan also urges the board to:

— Launch five "redevelopment projects" with mixed use of school property to generate capital funding;

— Hire a marketing director to boost enrolment, including a drive to recruit more fee-paying international students;

— Reduce violent incidents by 20 per cent;

— Establish a Parent Academy, similar to one in Miami, where parents can receive training in a range of subjects;

— Install solar energy systems on up to 20 schools each year;

— Promote "full-service" schools with community use.