The Ford government is planning to cut 10,125 teaching jobs over the next four years in a move that will save $851 million, according to education ministry memos obtained by the Star. Details of the plan to phase out the full-time positions, starting this fall, are outlined in documents sent out Wednesday to directors of education and senior business officials in the province’s school boards.Some 1,558 full-time teaching jobs will be gone by this fall, and another 2,177 by 2020-21, the memo says. For the 2021-22 school year, 2,915 jobs will be phased out, and a further 3,475 by the fall of 2022.In Ontario, there are currently about 115,123 full-time teachers in permanent positions.Read more:Teen organizers of Ontario’s student walkout on why they’re fighting Ford’s education cutsThursday’s anti-Ford government walkout is part of a surge in student activismStudents to lose jobs after Ford government axes school programsEnrolment has been dropping in recent years, with a 5 per cent decrease from 2006 to 2016.However, in the Toronto District School Board, enrolment is set to increase in the near future, from the current 242,423 to 243,988 by 2021-22.While secondary schools will see the brunt of the cuts, elementary positions will also be lost as the government moves to boost class sizes by an average of one student from Grades 4 to 8, and an average of six students in high school.Because those are averages, secondary classes — now averaging 22 teens — will end up much larger than 28, as they offset smaller, specialized classes. “For us, it’s the number of caring adults in a school,” said Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, adding trustees’ main concerns are not only the cutbacks to staffing levels but the subsequent loss of programming.Having fewer teachers will be “significant,” she said. With the average secondary school expected to see a los ...
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