The Ontario government is boosting class sizes from Grade 4 to Grade 12 — saving about $250 million in the first year of a four-year plan — and promising no layoffs despite the loss of thousands of teaching positions.

While keeping the current caps from kindergarten to Grade 3, Education Minister Lisa Thompson on Friday announced that an average of one student will be added to classes in Grades 4 to 8, and, in high school, the average class size will increase from 22 to 28 students — putting Ontario in line with other provinces.

“Not one teacher — not one will lose their job because of our class-size strategy,” Thompson said at a news conference at the Ontario Science Centre.

The news prompted warnings of labour chaos among teachers, as well as fewer small, specialized classes — from the arts to Grade 12 physics — for teens to choose from.

“These guys have set up the conditions for exactly what they needed to avoid — which is instability and discord in the education system, as long as they are in office, frankly,” said Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, adding the Ford government will face “massive resistance” from all teacher unions.

Sam Hammond, who heads the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, said while he appreciates that government listened to concerns about class sizes in the primary grades, he’s “very disappointed” with what’s planned.

“We’ve already said we are absolutely opposed to that, and we’ll do whatever we need to do to defend class size averages that are reasonable, from kindergarten to Grade 12.”

It’s estimated that about 16,000 to18,000 teaching positions in total could be lost, through attrition.

Thompson’s announcement also included a “back-to-basics” math curriculum and improved teacher training, a mandatory numeracy test for all new teachers, a ban on cellphones in classrooms for non-educational purposes and a plan to make each high school student earn one online credit each year starting in 2020.

Such e-learning classes will be much larger, with an average of 35 students, according to a ministry memo obtained by the Star, and could also lead to fewer teaching positions.

That didn’t go over well with the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, which urged the government to drop the idea, saying “although e-learning classes provide a modernized learning experience for all students, these courses are not a good fit for everyone.”

York education professor Sharon Murphy said e-learning raises questions of access for some students — who may not have a computer at home — and research has also shown such classes must have some in-person interaction to help students succeed.

Thompson also announced some revisions to the health/sex-ed curriculum, including mental health and wellness in the primary years, and topics such as consent and body image starting in Grade 2. It keeps lessons on learning the proper names of body parts in Grade 1, but moves discussion of gender identity and gender expression to Grade 8.

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While parents have always had the option of removing their children from sex-ed classes, the government said “there will be clear provisions” for that, as well as materials available online for families who prefer to cover the material at home.

Because of human rights obligations, school boards typically don’t allow students to opt out of lessons on issues of inclusion, and it remains unclear how the government will accommodate families who don’t want their children to learn about gender identity.

The ministry says it is working to devise an opt-out plan on that issue.

The province currently funds boards based on an average of 22 students per secondary teacher, but that’s an average — so some classes are well above 30, and other, specialized classes much smaller.

Typically, local collective agreements also contain class size caps in specific areas — like in Toronto, where tech classes can have no more than 22 students or applied-level classes 23 — so the gap with changes the government is proposing is “unbridgeable,” said Bischof.

Thompson said class-size changes will mean less than 1 per cent of savings in the $28 billion spent overall in education in the first year. No figures were made available for subsequent years.

NDP education critic Marit Stiles said students “are going to receive fewer resources, fewer one-on-one attention in the classroom and at the end of the day students are going to suffer.”

“We can have a world-class education system in this province, but we need to invest in children and their future, not make cuts on the back of our kids,” she said.

It’s unclear what the impact of class-size changes could be, but University of Toronto professor Charles Pascal said good teaching is the most important factor in student success — more than class size — but “how these things are discussed and developed is the key.”

The Ford government “has an abysmal track record when it comes to collaboration with those who are charged with implementing grassroots change,” added Pascal, of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, said “we are quite concerned about the secondary school class size increase.

“It’s a significant issue.”

The government’s education changes are based on consultations launched last year, which saw about 72,000 people and organizations take part.