Labour strife between the province and Ontario's English public teachers has led to a situation that's forcing the Rainbow District School Board to make job cuts, the board's director of education said.
Norm Blaseg said enrolment projections are down 570 students for the 2013-2014 school year. That includes about 180 students at the junior kindergarten level, and 300 at the Grade 9 level.
He said the board normally loses about 250 students a year because of a declining birth rate in the province, meaning next year's enrolment loss is more than two times larger than usual.
Teachers with both the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation and the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario boycotted extracurricular activities and other voluntary work for several months over the past school year.
The boycott by the English public teachers, which has since ended, was part of their protest against the province's decision to impose a contract on them.
This situation likely caused parents to enrol their children in schools run by one of the other local school boards, who were not impacted by the labour dispute, Blaseg speculates.
“We'd be looking to the other boards to see what their numbers are,” he said. “I'm pretty sure they have not taken the hit that we have.”
Beyond the extracurricular boycott, many teachers did not participate in information nights for students entering junior kindergarten or Grade 9 held in January and February, which may have had an impact on enrolment, Blaseg said.
Because enrolment is tied to government grants, the board has to make job cuts, Blaseg said. If they didn't, they'd run a $6-million deficit.
He said he doesn't yet have information on how many jobs will be cut, but said the layoffs will be in all sectors of the board, including teachers, support staff, principals and senior administrators.
Blaseg said the board will attempt to lessen the impact of the cuts on staff through retirement attrition.
“But when we can't make up the difference, obviously we have to look at layoffs as a way of mitigating the financial constraints we'll be under,” he said.
James Clyke, OSSTF District 3 president, who represents secondary teachers with the Rainbow board, said he thinks Blaseg's assertion that the labour strife is responsible for the enrolment numbers is “questionable, at best.”
He said he isn't sure why enrolment numbers have dropped more than usual, but points out the board has had declining enrolment for the last 10 or 12 years.
Clyke said he was speaking to his union counterparts with the Sudbury Catholic District School Board, and they said that board's enrolment is also down.
“If this is part of the labour strife, how come theirs is not up?” Clyke said.
As for the layoffs, Clyke said he'll have to wait until next fall to see their actual impact, as students often enrol in August or September, and teachers who had previously been made “redundant” are called back.
“I remember when I was working in the school system, at one of the schools, one September we had 60 enrolments,” Clyke said. “And that's just one school. So the impact might be lessened quite a bit.”
