Halton District School Board calls for an end to the back-to-school plan

By Cam Dorrett, Lucas Casaletto

The first day of school is just over two weeks away and the Halton District School Board has written a letter to the education minister, urging him to end what they call the province’s highly confusing back to school plan.

The letter, sent by the chair of the board of trustees, points to several items of concern in the plan, including the option to use reserve funds for smaller class sizes, saying it won’t be possible to hire enough teachers and secure enough new space with those limited funds.

Halton District School Board Chair, Andrea Grébenc, tells 680NEWS that Education Minister Stephen Lecce needs to treat school boards as partners.

“Our communities expect us to have answers, in hand, already,” she said.

“They expect these conversations to have happened with the ministry and for us to have worked out any issues. That is not currently happening.”

The trustees estimate the board would need 1,200 additional teachers to shrink elementary school classes to 15 students.

“That’s not how we want our teachers,” Grébenc added.

“We want to make sure we have good people in front of our students. If, suddenly, there was such thing as a school board lottery and we won money, it would still be very difficult and we would need to find the space.”

Premier Doug Ford says he remains confident in Ontario’s back-to-school plan.

“We have the safest and most cautious plan when it comes to the schools. I am glad some of the Premier’s are adopting some of our plans. That’s a compliment.”

With only $7 million from reserves available, that isn’t already being set aside for building upgrades, the trustees say it works out to about 78 new teachers – less than one per school.

Parents and guardians had until yesterday to fill out their ‘intent to return’ survey.

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