Local teachers' union rep Barb Blasutti hasn't done the math for the local impact of last week's provincial class size announcement, but does say “you can't increase class sizes without impacting the number of teachers.”
“That's what it is designed to do,” said Blasutti, president of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO) Rainbow local, representing elementary teachers working for the Rainbow District School Board.
“It's designed to cut billions of dollars from the education system ... I haven't done the exact math for Rainbow, and what that means for the number of positions in Rainbow.”
Last week, as part of an announcement of a sweeping series of changes to the education system, education minister Lisa Thompson announced the cap for high school classes will be raised by six students, from 22 to 28.
Cap sizes for kindergarten and primary grades are not being changed. In Grades 4 to 8, the average will increase by less than one student, from 23.84 to 24.5.
Thompson has said there will be no involuntary job losses, with the reduction in the ranks of teachers being done through attrition.
She said during the transition, there will be an extra $1.6 billion for school boards over the next three years to support maintaining teaching positions where needed until reductions can be done through attrition.
Sudbury.com is in the process of arranging an interview with a representative of the Rainbow District School Board, the largest school board in the area, to gauge the impact locally.
We're also hoping to speak to James Clyke, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) District 3, representing public high school teachers in the area, but he's currently out of town.
Harvey Bischof, president of the OSSTF, said in the national media the government's plan will affect about 5,500 high school teachers in the province.
National media is also reporting a memo sent to Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustees says last week's announcement means losing more than 1,000 teaching jobs in that board.
Blasutti said class size caps are actually part of teachers' unions collective bargaining agreements.
“I would say that we are going to defend our collective agreement entitlements, for sure,” she said, hinting at future labour unrest.
“We are going to defend public education and what is best for students, and higher class sizes are not best for students. Children should not have to pay for education cuts.”
Blasutti said the increase in class size caps is also especially troublesome when combined with the province's recent announcement of changes to the autism therapy system.
While aimed at eliminating a large wait list, parents say the changes will in effect mean children with autism won't receive as much behavioural intervention therapy, and will be sent to school by default.
“They're just going to be literally dumped into our school system,” said Blasutti.
She said the province has promised training for teachers, but her members won't be able to provide adequate supports.
“We're motivated and we're dedicated, but we are not autism specialists,” she said.
The class size cap increase was just one aspect of the education reforms announced by the provincial government last week.
Thompson also announced a ban on cellphones in the classroom during instructional time, a new math curriculum and a new sex ed curriculum.
Blasutti said the cellphone ban has so many exceptions, it's basically what teachers are doing right now when it comes to devices in the classroom.
She said the sex ed curriculum bears a lot of resemblance to the document released in 2015 by the Wynne government, although some concepts, such as gender identity, are introduced later.
And as for the math curriculum, which the province said focuses on basic concepts and skills, Blasutti said teachers already teach the basics.
“This is like bait and switch,” she said. “They're trying to distract from the real announcements of the cutting of the autism funding and those students coming into the system and the cutting of the funding for class size averages and caps.”
