A leaked Ministry of Education memo is warning school boards, the funding they received to help with school openings last fall may not be available for the 2021-22 school year.
The province made $1.6 million available for boards to hire additional staff to meet public health guidelines in the classroom.
The memo, issued at the end of February and released by the NDP to the media, tells boards to take a cautious approach to next year’s planning.
It says staffing levels should be based on school boards not receiving extra money.
“Staffing assumptions should be based on the COVID-19 funding supports being one-time in nature while we continue to monitor and work with health experts to assess what supports are needed and review the valuable feedback in our GSN consultation,” the memo states.
The NDP says that is certain to mean layoffs at the end of this school year.
“Doug Ford was cutting education and looking to fire as many as 10,000 teachers and education workers before the pandemic began. Parents and educators are worried that he’s already looking to make new cuts at the worst possible time,” says education critic Marit Stiles.
“Teachers and education workers that would have been laid off by Doug Ford were given an extra year, as a result of the pandemic and we are still facing a teacher shortage,” says Stiles. “This memo makes it pretty clear Ford’s still planning to cut those jobs.”
