School trustees have a substantial amount of power through the school board. Collectively, trustees control everything from budgets to curriculum tweaks, as well as having power over the superintendent, including firing them.

Hanover school division has had trustees flexing their power recently to attack LGBT+ students, for example.

That being said, I only have 3 trustees running in my ward (3 are elected, they are all incumbents), none of them have platforms, and none of them will respond to emails. So I'm not voting for any of my trustees, not because of a lack of importance, but because I have no reasonable candidates.