The Peel school board said Tuesday that teacher layoffs are unavoidable for this fall, given government cuts as well as looming larger class sizes, on the same day that Premier Doug Ford again promised no full-time educator would be out of a job.Some 128 elementary and 193 high school teachers were declared surplus in Peel on Tuesday — in addition to another 48 teachers and 30 early childhood educators who previously received such notices — and the outlook is bleak for a board that hasn’t had to issue such notices in years. “I honestly can’t see that there won’t be layoffs,” said Jamie Robertson, superintendent of human resources support services in Peel, as attrition will not cover the losses. “I definitely do believe there will be layoffs.”Earlier Tuesday, Ford told reporters in Markham that surplus notices are typical at this time of year, “and then they all again end up getting hired.”School boards, he added, will soon be getting their budgets for the 2019-20 school year, “so let’s talk after their get the budgets and talk to the school boards. But, we’ll make sure that no front-line teacher, full-time front-line teacher, loses a job.”He also said that while his government wants to work with teachers’ unions to avoid labour disruption this fall, the unions “declared war” on the PCs after his party was elected.“I’m going to do everything in our power to make sure this doesn’t happen,” Ford said when asked about the possibility of a teacher strike when contracts expire at the end of August. The 369 notices to Peel teachers that have been sent out are “surplus to region,” meaning they do not have a placement in a school for this fall. While some will be recalled, on average only about 300 teachers retire in any given year — 200 elementary and 100 secondary — and “for both those groups, we are significa ...
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