The President of the Greater Essex Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario is disappointed with some trustees from the Greater Essex County District School Board.
Mario Spagnuolo says a motion was put forward at Wednesday's special board meeting to pull roughly $3-million from reserves. He says the money would have helped limiting the number of students in a classroom but the motion was defeated by a split vote (5-5).
"I don't agree with the decision," says Spagnuolo. "I've already heard from teachers and parents that they're upset with that decision because it would have been at least a band-aid for a bigger problem but I don't think right now is the time to wait to see what the government is going to do."
Spagnuolo says the reserve is from taxpayers dollars.
"They have used one per cent but they had an additional one per cent so it was another $3-million I believe it worked out to that they could have invested to make the school safer and the trustees in this area unlike other areas across province voted against that and that's quite disappointing and really unacceptable in my view," says Spagnuolo.
He adds his members are also concerned with the outbreak policy.
"We still have many questions about the outbreak policy and procedures," says Spagnuolo. "They still don't know exactly what will happen if there is an outbreak within a school, so that is quite concerning. Teachers and us parents, need to know that, that's up in the air really and at the discretion of the health unit at the time. I think parents want to know in advance what the plan is going to be."
The GECDSB's updated plan can be found on the GECDSB website.