The local president of the Greater Essex Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario is worried about the impact in the classrooms as the result of a projected $8.9-million deficit at the Greater Essex County District School Board.
Mario Spagnuolo says he represents 1,500 elementary school teachers and they are concerned about potential cuts as a result of the deficit.
Spagnuolo says he surveyed his members about their concerns and he plans to share the feedback he received during Tuesday's board meeting.
He says one of the concerns they see year-to-year is that special education funding is not keeping up with the needs of students.
"We have 57,000 children with autism on waiting lists across Ontario, and there's also been an increase in need in terms of mental healthc," he says. "The students that our members are dealing with aren't able to get access to the services they need, for example, social work, psychologists, child and youth workers, we just don't have enough staff."
In December 2023, the board announced the multi-million dollar deficit for 2023-2024 as officials began examining ways to address the issue ahead of budget deliberations for the 2024-2025 school year.
Spagnuolo says special education seems to be the area where there may be some cuts.
"What my concern is, and what I'm hearing in the comments reflected by my members, is that special education needs more funding, not less," he says. "Unfortunately, we are under funded by the Government of Ontario, and so that is something the school board is looking at for potential cutting, and that would be devastating because these are the kids that need the most services possible."
Spagnuolo says we have a funding problem, not a spending problem.
"That's what we need to centre our discussions on, to say to the government, 'You aren't providing the funding these kids need.' You can't expect trustees and school boards to continue to run the schools with less and less money, because it's not keeping up with inflation," he says.
The board receives 95 per cent of its funding from the Ministry of Education using a funding formula known as the Grants for Student Needs (GSN).
This formula is applied consistently to each of the 72 district school boards in Ontario.
Trustees with the Greater Essex County District School Board meet at 7 p.m. on April 2.
With files from Rob Hindi