Teacher layoffs coming, says Waterloo Catholic District School Board
The Waterloo Catholic District School board says it will have to make some teacher layoffs despite learning Thursday that an anticipated cut in its share of provincial funding wasn't as deep as expected.
The province’s 72 school boards will receive $22.5 billion in the 2015-2016 school year, the same amount allocated to them the previous year, Ontario's education minister Liz Sandals announced.
Shesh Maharaj, the WCDSB chief financial officer, said the board had been told to expect a 1 to 2 per cent decrease, would have been between $2 million and $4 million. Instead, the reduction is just shy of $1 million.
Based on an early projection that the board will have 140 fewer students next year, the school board will receive more than $224 million, he said.
For the 2014-2015 school year, the board received over $225 million in funding with 20,662 students enrolled.
"We will have fewer kids, so therefore we will have fewer teachers. In addition since we do have to balance the budget we may have to affect some other programs and services," said Maharaj.
The board has not determined how many layoffs will occur, but said that number will be mitigated somewhat by the number of retirements this year. The board also has yet to decide on what programs could see cuts.
Maharaj said enrolment is projected to decline and bottom out in 2018, after which the board may see an uptick.
Under-capacity schools to be reviewed
In Thursday’s announcement, the province stressed that boards need to focus on closing schools that are under-capacity, or find other programs willing to rent out empty classrooms.
Maharaj said there are schools in the district that are under-capacity and that the board will be taking the province’s mandate seriously.
"[The province has] provided a number of tools to boards in order to right-size their schools. And those tools range from financial incentives to close off those spaces, they’ve also given us a new people accommodation review guideline which really deals with school closures and things like that and they’ve also given us a new partnership directive as well, so we have to seek out third parties that are willing to lease out school spaces," said Maharaj.
"So with all those things combined I think parents will probably see a greater number of reviews going on in terms of looking at should schools still be there and we’ll also see probably more third parties in schools as the years move forward."
Public board still examining changes
Waterloo Region District School Board did not make anyone available for comment Thursday. In an emailed statement, the board said it needed time to examine the changes to funding closely.
"We will have a better understanding once we begin the process of establishing our 2015-2016 school year budget," the board said in a statement.
"Over the past few years, staff and trustees have worked hard and made some difficult decisions to balance our expenditures with revenues we received from the province. These decisions have ensured that we are in a strong financial position with long term sustainability, so we can continue to direct our spending in areas that support student achievement and well-being."