The Peel District School Board has confirmed it is laying off 369 elementary and high school teachers across the region.

However, the Ford Government re-affirmed its commitment that no teachers would lose their jobs and that funding help was on the way.

According to media spokesperson Carla Pereira, the board handed out layoff notices to 176 permanent elementary and 193 high school teachers on Tuesday (April 16) as a result of recent funding cuts in 2019 provincial budget. She added the layoffs would take effect Sept. 1.

“We needed to do this to start allocating teachers to schools,” she said. “We needed to continue with our staffing process.”

A release from the Ontario Secondary School Teacher’s Federation (OSSTF) Peel District 19 — the union representing 2,500 Peel high school teachers — confirmed the layoffs, blaming the province’s education plan for the move.

“In spite of what the Premier has said, this is not a regular event in staffing in the PDSB,” said the union's president, Mike Bettiol, in the release. “In fact, we haven’t had lay-offs in the last five years.”

Bettiol added the staffing cuts would result in 1,200 fewer classes being offered in Peel high schools starting the next school year in September.

“Due to the change in the staffing generation number and cuts in the Province’s education budget Peel District School Board had to layoff an unprecedented number of teachers from their secondary panel,” added the OSSTF release.

The opposition NDP first raised alarm bells about the layoffs in the legislature at Queen’s Park earlier on Tuesday (April 16), claiming at least 120 teacher and education worker layoffs were on the way.

“Every day we learn that more and more teachers may not have a job come September, leaving parents worried that their kids will not have access to the courses or resources they need to reach their full potential,” NDP leader Andrea Horwath said Tuesday.