CP24’s Andrew Brennan reports on numbers suggesting 289 teaching positions could potentially be cut in the upcoming academic year.
Canada’s largest school board says it is anticipating chopping just under 300 teaching positions this September, not more than 600 as the union previously suggested.
Ryan Bird, a spokesperson for Toronto District School Board’s (TDSB), said every spring, the board undertakes a process to determine its staffing needs for the upcoming school year.
“This planning helps ensure that every school has the staff required to support the needs of students,” Bird wrote in a statement provided to CTV News Toronto on Tuesday afternoon.
He further noted that the number of teachers is “largely based on declining enrolment, with the TDSB anticipating nearly 5,000 fewer students in the new school year.”
“When compared to the current number of elementary and secondary teachers in the TDSB, we anticipate approximately 289 fewer teaching positions. It’s important to note that staffing continues to fluctuate right up until the new school year, so these numbers are not yet final,” he said.
TDSB elementary classroom A TDSB elementary classroom is seen in this undated file photo.
Union calls cuts ‘devastating’
On Tuesday, Elementary Teachers of Toronto (ETT), Canada’s largest local of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, issued a news release condemning “devastating staffing cuts by the Ford government” and “warning they will have devastating consequences for students, families, and education workers across the city.”
Representing more than 11,000 elementary teachers employed by the TDSB, the local said the board has provided them with “long-delayed information on elementary staffing levels for the upcoming school year,” which ETT said would have normally been made public in early March “under the oversight of elected Trustees.”
“Instead, these decisions are now being driven behind closed doors under the direction of Minister (of Education Paul) Calandra and the Provincial Government,” the union charged in a news release.
ETT president Helen Victoros Fan. 3 rally ETT president Helen Victoros speaks during a Feb. 3 rally outside the TDSB’s head office.
In a statement provided to CTV News Toronto, Calandra pointed to the “decline in student enrollment” that is contributing to the hundreds of job cuts among TDSB staff for the upcoming school year.
“The appearance of any reductions over and above that number are positions that were not filled in previous years as a result of declining enrolment. To be clear, these do not include positions of teachers working in the classroom right now,” it reads.
Elementary Teachers of Toronto, meanwhile, says the proposed cuts include more than 600 jobs: 483.5 elementary teaching positions (nearly one-fifth of the TDSB’s workforce), all 145 elementary teachers in Model Schools, which serve school communities identified as having the highest need, 72 ESL teachers, and nine teacher-librarians.
“This is a dismantling of essential supports that students rely on every day,” ETT President Helen Victoros said in the release.
“The scale of these cuts will be felt in every classroom and in every community across Toronto. … They will hit hardest in those schools where students already face systemic barriers.”
TDSB staffing cuts charts by ETT Charts compiled by ETT showing where it extrapolated the TDSB staffing reduction number from. (ETT images)
Cuts mean larger classes, less supports: ETT
Elementary Teachers of Toronto went on to say that the elimination of these positions will result in “even larger class sizes and far fewer supports for students who need them most” and “increased strain on already stretched teachers and school communities, particularly affecting students from marginalized and underserved backgrounds.”
The union that these cuts, compounded by an outdated school board funding formula, are part of a broader pattern of underfunding by the province. Since 2018, ETT said the province has cut $6.35 billion in education funding “when adjusted for inflation and enrolment.”
The union local added that instead of addressing these concerns, the provincial government accused the TDSB of financial mismanagement and launched an audit that “ultimately confirmed that the Board was providing more support to students than the Province was funding.”
“What we are seeing now is the real agenda of Doug Ford and Paul Calandra,” Victoros said.
“Instead of fixing a broken funding model, ensuring equity of opportunity for all of our students, regardless of their postal code, and building the schools our students deserve, the government is forcing school boards to slash supports and services to our students to match inadequate funding levels.”
A grade six classroom A grade six classroom is shown at Hunter’s Glen Junior Public School, which is part of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on Sept. 14, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette)
Further, ETT is raising serious concerns about the lack of transparency in this process, saying all allocations would be public.
“This information would be reviewed and scrutinized by publicly elected Trustees, ensuring accountability to parents and communities. Members of the public would have been able to address Trustees and TDSB Senior Staff in public deputations,” the union local said.
Added Victoros:
“These decisions are being made in secrecy, driven by Minister Calandra and the provincially appointed Supervisor Gupta, who has no experience in public education; and now we can see why: they represent a significant departure from what our students need,” she said.
TDSB A Toronto District School Board logo is seen on a sign in front of a high school in Toronto, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
Lastly, ETT is calling on the province to put students first, reverse these devastating cuts, immediately review and modernize the school funding formula, and fund public education based on actual student needs.
“Our students deserve better. Public education should be built on equity, support, and opportunity, not cuts and secrecy to serve the Ford agenda,” said Victoros.
NDP speaking out against TDSB job cuts
The Ontario NDP is also denouncing the proposed job cuts.
“TDSB students are already packed into overcrowded classrooms in rundown schools, thanks to eight years of Doug Ford’s funding cuts,” University-Rosedale MPP Jessica Bell said in a statement.
“These latest cuts will see class sizes increase and student supports disappear, all while parents continue to hear silence from the Conservatives’ overpaid, unqualified, hand-picked supervisor. These attacks on our children’s education must end.”
The party’s Shadow Minister of Education Chandra Pasma, the MPP for Ottawa West—Nepean, added that cutting more than 600 teachers, “especially from schools serving lower-income communities and ESL programs, is a direct attack on equity in our education system.”
“Like so many of Doug Ford and Paul Calandra’s cuts, these cuts are going to hurt the most vulnerable students the most. Instead of imposing school board takeovers that allow unqualified supervisors to make decisions in secret, behind closed doors, Doug Ford needs to properly fund education and restore locally accountable elected trustees,” she said.
With files from CTV News Toronto’s Siobhan Morris
