TDSB revises U.S. travel ban to allow certain trips

The Toronto District School Board has amended its controversial policy involving trips to the U.S.

The board now says school trips to the U.S. related to student competitions and professional development opportunities for staff and trustees will no longer be subject to previously outlined travel restrictions.

"The students are going to be just over the moon. I expect that we will be getting a lot of emails saying, 'Thank you,'" TDSB trustee Alexander Brown told CBC Toronto on Wednesday. "Really the whole point that was made in the boardroom was that we don't want to clip their wings. We want to give them those opportunities."

Last year, the board said it would stop booking trips to the U.S. indefinitely due to uncertainty surrounding border restrictions placed by the Trump administration's attempted "travel bans."

"We're committed as a school board to equity, inclusiveness and fairness, and it's not appropriate that some students would not be able to attend based on their country of birth," TDSB chair Robin Pilkey said in March.

Consultative approach

Brown said the initial decision by trustees didn't consult with students or parents. That changed this time around.

"Student voice and parent voice is extremely important in this," he said. "The original motion was the trustees sitting around the table discussing this restriction on travel to the United States, which didn't consider the competition."

Several students have pushed the TDSB to reconsider its U.S. travel ban saying it prevented them from attending events like the International Career Development Conference, an international association of high school and college students in business, finance and marketing.

"Not being able to have that opportunity, and going to the next level — the final stage of the competition — is unbelievable," student Maisha Fahmida told CBC Toronto in January.

Before Wednesday's vote, board trustees said they were paying attention to the students' concerns.

The chair of the governance and policy committee, Brown, told CBC Toronto in January there are 327 TDSB students who are legally in Canada but who do not have citizenship and are at a "much higher risk of being turned away at the U.S. border" because of the Trump travel ban.

Despite that, the committee made a recommendation to adjust the TDSB travel ban to exempt "competitions and professional development" in the U.S.