Ontario’s education system has been plunged into “chaos and confusion” days before school resumes after Premier Doug Ford’s government tried to go back to the drawing board on increasing class sizes to save $250 million in the coming year.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said Thursday he’s “open” to suggestions from school boards and teachers’ unions to stop average class sizes from rising to 28 students over the next four years — from 22 in the last school year — insisting they will only increase marginally next month in Grades 4 and above.

“We should not be dogmatic about this,” Lecce told reporters in Scarborough, calling for “innovative ideas” as the government negotiates new contracts with teacher unions to replace ones that expire at the end of August.

He cautioned that any efforts to offset larger class sizes must acknowledge the Progressive Conservative government’s “fiscal realities” as it strives to eliminate annual deficits, and maintained it is time to “debunk some of these narratives out there” that class sizes are rising dramatically, with negative impacts on students.

But education unions and school boards were left scratching their heads, given that teachers have already been laid off and course offerings pared for the coming school year after the changes were announced in March and confirmed when the province released the school funding formula last spring.

“This is the basis on which school boards have been planning for this year, resulting in courses and programs being cancelled, supports being lost, and teachers’ and education workers’ jobs being eliminated,” said Liz Stuart, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association.

“If the government was planning a different course of action, they could have told Ontarians about it months ago. Instead, they have been content to allow chaos and confusion to unfold.”

The government has faced heavy criticism from parents, students and school boards over the plan to increase class sizes in Grades 4 to 12 because of concerns it will limit course offerings, particularly in specialty programs, and hurt after-school activities because there will be fewer teachers to run them. It is expected the savings, including a move to more online courses, will save more than $850 million over four years.

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Lecce said class sizes “will remain effectively the same as last year,” with one additional student per class in Grades 4 to 8 and half a student more in Grades 9 to 12, bringing the average high school class to 22.5 students.

Ministry officials could not explain what this means in practical terms for boards, leaving it unclear as to whether they can hire teachers back.

The Toronto District School Board said it is not sure, either. “We’re currently reviewing today’s announcement to determine how it impacts the TDSB,” said spokesman Ryan Bird.

A York board teacher, who contacted the Star and asked to remain anonymous, questioned how the Progressive Conservative government now expects school systems to meet the averages.

“Assuming the boards did their hiring and scheduling based on a higher (average class size) number, how in the world are they going to get it down to 22.5 in 12 days? It would take new hiring, and it would take a very significant rescheduling of courses. It’s impossible to imagine this getting done before Labour Day,” the high school teacher wrote in an email.

“But let’s say they could do it. A percentage of teachers will be told on day one that they have a different set of courses. How are they going to create all-new course plans then?”

The president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation dismissed the announcement from Lecce — who was appointed education minister in late June after his predecessor, Lisa Thompson, was demoted to the government and consumer services portfolio — as a “feeble attempt” at damage control.

“The Ford government is framing this as a ‘good news’ announcement, but this does nothing to mitigate the damage that will be wrought by the removal of a full quarter of Ontario’s high school teachers from the system,” said Harvey Bischof.

“The end result will still be ballooning class sizes, fewer supports for students, and a significant reduction in available courses and programs.”

New Democrat MPP Marit Stiles said the government doesn’t seem to understand how much work school boards have done already, despite widespread media reports.

“Mr. Lecce and Mr. Ford want to dodge the criticism they’re getting for this horrific cut to our children’s schools,” added Stiles (Davenport), her party’s education critic and a former TDSB trustee.

Outside Lecce’s news conference, 14 demonstrators led by former PC leadership candidate and one-time Ford ally Tanya Granic Allen chanted “Doug Ford lies” to protest Wednesday’s decision to keep much of the previous Liberal government’s sex education curriculum in place after promising to repeal it.

At Queen’s Park, former premier Kathleen Wynne blasted the Ford government for “creating a crisis” around sex education.

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“It was rooted in lies about a hidden agenda,” Wynne said of her Progressive Conservative successor’s use of the issue.

“Now they’ve been caught out and they’re reinstating a curriculum that was based in science and based on community input,” she said.

“The opposition to sex education is rooted in homophobia. People like Charles McVety and Tanya Granic Allen have hid behind religion,” said Wynne, Canada’s first openly gay premier, of the two prominent social conservatives who backed Ford last year.

McVety continues to support the premier.

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