Education Minister Paul Calandra is personally going to run the troubled Near North school board until he appoints a provincial supervisor, saying he needs to be at the helm temporarily to get answers “as to what the heck is going on” there.

Calandra — in his first flex of the expanded powers he has under new education legislation that passed just a week and a half ago — announced Monday that the province is taking over the North Bay-based board, stripping trustees of their power.

And, in an unusual move, the minister has put himself in charge for the time being, which opposition critics called unprecedented and unworkable for a GTA-based politician who already has a busy portfolio.

But Calandra said he swooped in after the board failed to act on a number of orders he issued after

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