The province will provide 1.6billion to help schools avoid teacher layoffs
Ontario is expected to put $1.6-billion toward ensuring school boards don't have to lay off teachers as a result of increasing class sizes.
The attrition protection money will be officially announced Friday, along with school board funding allocations known as Grants for Student Needs.
Doug Ford's Ontario PC government announced that high school class sizes will increase, from an average of 22 to 28, over four years.
Making the funding announcement misleading, according to Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation District 9 President, Erin Roy.
"A bit of a distraction because that just means that it doesn't matter if it happens all at once or if it happens over a period of four years, it's going to result in larger class sizes and fewer teachers in the end," she says.
Roy says — at the end of the day — the math points to fewer teachers in Ontario classrooms.
"Using large numbers like $1.6-billion makes it sound really good to the public but the fact of the matter is that they're going to change the funding generator to a class size average of 28 to one, that's a significant increase to our class sizes," says Roy. "At the end of the day it will be a significant decrease to the number of teachers that are in the classroom."