The Upper Grand board, which is larger, with more than 3,000 teaching and support staff, has not yet said whether support staff will be laid off along with teachers.

Both boards have said they hope to be able to recall as many teachers as possible.

“We are expecting to receive full funding details from the government at the end of April, at which time staff will continue to work through the budget process and look at what we’ll be able to do moving forward,” Loney said Wednesday.

“Where possible, we are hoping to minimize the impact of these funding changes on our students and staff. But we know, moving forward, that we are working with less provincial funding and fewer funded positions in our system,” she said.

Paul Rawlinson, district president for the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation said it may be a daunting task try to get teachers recalled to positions given the magnitude of the government’s cuts.

But it is not only teacher jobs that are a concern, he said.

“On top of the loss of teaching positions, we are concerned that these losses could result in fewer course selection choices for students, especially in areas like music, tech/shop classes or French immersion, which often have smaller class sizes,” Rawlinson said in an email to the Mercury Tribune.

“Students will also have classes with even more students in them, increasing the competition for individual and personal support and instruction with their teachers,” he said.

Editor's note: Comments from OSSTF district president Paul Rawlinson were added to this story after its initial online publication.

