A long-time Brampton resident, Kathy McDonald has been actively involved with the Peel District School Board as a parent volunteer since 2001. She began her four-year term as trustee of Wards 3 and 4 in Brampton on Dec 1, 2014. 

Kathy’s key priorities are to help each child including the Black child realize their full potential, to work to ensure that the educational environment across the PDSB and the province is equitable and to remove barriers so that all children will learn and thrive in a discrimination free environment. Trustee McDonald is a fierce advocate for dismantling anti-Black racism with the PDSB and all boards across Ontario and Canada. 

She is a founding member and currently the Inaugural Chair of the Ontario Public School Board Association’s Black Trustees’ Caucus. Kathy has also been very involved in OPSBA throughout her tenure serving as the PDSB rep on the Board of Director or as the Regional rep. Kathy has a BSc. from McGill University and a post graduate diploma from the University of Guelph in The Theory of Teaching Practices. Trustee McDonald sits on many boards and has received many awards from the community as a result of her advocacy for disrupting systems , policies and practices that disenfranchise Black students  and students that are marginalized. 

She is most proud of receiving the Harry Jerome Award in 2021, The Jamaican Canadian Association Award for community Service in 2022, the ABC 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women Award in 2022 and the King Charles III Coronation Medal in 2025.