Hundreds of public high school teachers across the province have been laid off from their full-time jobs, numbers obtained by the Star show.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation found that among 10 boards, the equivalent of 266 full-time teaching positions have been eliminated — with the actual numbers of teachers laid off even higher. In the Toronto District School Board alone, the changes have impacted 97 full-time equivalent jobs, or 124 teachers.

The 266 doesn’t include teachers in a number of boards which are still finalizing staffing for this school year, nor secondary teachers in Catholic boards as their union is still compiling numbers.

Teachers who have been laid off this school year could have been bumped into supply work, whether long term or day-by-day, or could find themselves out of work entirely.

“This represents a loss of services to students,” said Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, who was at Queen’s Park on Monday with about 50 of his members who’ve been laid off or shuffled into supply work instead — including one Oakville educator bumped down to a one-semester, part-time position who had to take on a waitressing job to make ends meet.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said she “can remember (Premier Doug) Ford saying over and over again ‘no job is going to be lost.’ ”

Now, “the evidence is clear that is not happening,” Horwath told the Star. “Teachers are, in fact, losing their jobs. This bodes very badly for our education system and for our kids.”

The Ontario government is looking to boost average class sizes in high schools from last year’s 22 to 25 — down from the 28 they’d originally announced as part of a four-year plan, though the lower average would still mean a loss of thousands of teaching positions.

This fall, the average class size across the province was 22.5, though actual class sizes can be much larger to offset smaller, more specialized classes.

In the legislature, Ford said the government has injected an extra $700 million into education, “more money than any government in the history of Ontario,” listing other initiatives including a new math curriculum and better mental health funding.

The increase in education spending is largely due to increased enrolment, as well as the government’s child-care rebate.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said the education budget is now $24 billion with increased, targeted funds for special education, mental health, transportation and First Nations education, as well as monies to build or refurbish schools.

The province has also created a $1.6 billion attrition fund to help prevent teacher layoffs, which the province’s financial accountability officer found was sufficient. However, the loss of provincial funding in other areas has also led to job losses.

With the changes, some educators have been bumped from full-time positions into precarious supply work. Kaitlyn Andrews, who has been a teacher for seven years, was laid off from her full-time job at a Halton public high school and now has a one-semester-only, part-time supply position.

She said she had to pick up waitressing shifts in order to make ends meet — a job that fits well “because they work around my schedule, when I have meetings or have to meet with parents.”

Andrews said for “seven years I’ve been working, and doing extra and making sure I’m there for students.” Now, she’s worried about providing the same level of support to them.

“I feel so guilty, I’m so worried about my own situation. I’ve had to take on a second job just to pay the bills.”

By this time in her career, Andrews said “I expected that I would have been able to at least establish myself … at least knowing I had some form of job security.”

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In ongoing contract negotiations with teacher unions, the provincial government’s latest offer to the OSSTF is to move to an average class size of 25. The OSSTF — like other teacher unions — is currently holding strike votes.

In the Toronto District School Board, about 80 teachers on the laid-off list have temporary supply positions.

“Clearly a number of teachers have lost their jobs” already, said Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner. “Even going from 22 to 22.5 we’ve seen courses cancelled, we’ve seen programs cancelled and some students can’t access the classes they need to graduate.”

Getting to 25 or 28 “will be a direct attack on the quality of education.”

The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association does not have all the numbers as yet, “but we continue to hear reports of teachers who have been declared redundant or had their employment status changed,” said President Liz Stuart.

Cathy Abraham, head of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, said it is still trying to get a handle on how many teachers have been let go.

“For us, the biggest concern is the number of caring adults in the schools, and having enough adults in the schools to take care of our kids — whether it be in-class or extracurricular — all those things that teachers and staff do in our schools,” she said.

“We just know they all haven’t come back … The attrition money did help, but didn’t offset the other reasons we lost funding” in other areas.

Laura Kee, who has been a teacher in Halton for three years, has been moved to part-time status, and English teacher Mark Kowgier, who has been a teacher for 10 years, is now split part-time between two high schools in Burlington.

“It ends up impacting kids because you can’t be there,” he said. “You can’t run clubs, you can’t build those relationships that go beyond the classroom. In the end, it’s the kids having to deal with that, too.”

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