Six months after resigning as director of Education of the Toronto District School Board, Chris Spence is finally addressing allegations of plagiarism.

The 51-year-old Spence says he’s doing so as part of a healing process and to gradually rebuild his reputation.

In his words, “I never ever sat down to take someone else’s ideas. It was unintentional … But … I put my name on it, so I own it.”

Spence talks about being in deep depression after losing his job and that he felt it was time to answer questions about the scandal that dates back 17 years to when he was a graduate student at the U of T.

The university is investigating and Spence is co-operating.

While at the TDSB, he proposed a boys academy as part of a strategy to help struggling students and was also a key advocate for the board’s first Africentric school.