

Chris Fox, CP24.com





The Toronto District School Board is planning to eliminate a number of teaching positions as it continues to deal with declining enrollment, spokesperson Ryan Bird confirms to CP24.

According to a report provided to the board's budget committee, trustees will be asked to approve a plan to eliminate 38 elementary teacher positions, 64 high school teacher positions and 45 early childhood educator positions in time for the next school year.

The report also says that the board should cut a number of non-teaching jobs, including 46 lunchroom supervisor jobs, five caretaker jobs and four secretary jobs.

In a statement issued to CP24 on Saturday, Bird confirmed that the board is looking at reducing its staffing complement as part of this year’s budget but said it is only a result of declining enrollment, meaning class sizes won’t be impacted.

“Our funding from the Ministry is tied to enrolment,” he said. “Enrolment goes down, we get less money from the province, thus the need to reduce staffing in line with enrolment.”

Board trustee Ken Lister said the reduction will be achieved through attrition rather than layoffs, but the move will impact the number of new teachers hired in the future.

Lister said the board has been told by the province to maintain an average class size of 26 pupils per class.

According to the report obtained by CP24, the TDSB had 242,753 students this year which was less than the 245,162 it initially expected. The expected enrollment for the next school year is 241,211.

If approved, the reduction in positions will bring the number of elementary school teachers at the TDSB to 10,542 and the number of secondary school teachers to 4,805.

The TDSB's enrollment has declined steadily since topping 275,000 in 2005, however the report predicts that enrollment will be "more stable" in the coming years.

The board will vote on whether to approve the reductions at a meeting scheduled for March 9.