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HomeNewsUCDSB Chair says it’s ‘very unlikely’ 100 teachers will lose their jobs

UCDSB Chair says it’s ‘very unlikely’ 100 teachers will lose their jobs

Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) Chair John McAllister says the redundancy notices handed out this week don’t mean 100 high school teachers are getting laid off. He says the board always staffs conservatively and it’s very unlikely that everyone who got a notice will be out of work.

McAllister explained it’s the transportation deficit that’s killing the board. He says the UCDSB has done a very good job of looking after its own books and the budget is balanced, with the exception of transportation costs.

McAllister says the bus operators invoked their arbitration right, with a settlement in July. He says the result was an $18 million retroactive cost dating back a number of years, on top of a roughly $5 million in-year deficit.

The exact number of layoffs will not be known until the UCDSB approves its budget at the end of June.  

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Danny Thomas, Teacher Bargaining Unit President for District 26 of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, says he’s been doing his job for over 13 years and never seen this many casualties at this stage of the staffing process.  

He says the province’s plan to increase class sizes from a ratio of 22:1 to 28:1 is devastating. Thomas says when he sees 108 redundancy notices, he doesn’t have a very positive outlook for the future given that these cuts are part of a government program that will last three more years.

He says the difference between projected student enrollment this time last year and now is 150. Thomas says he doesn’t understand how 150 fewer students translates to 100 less teachers. He says the teachers want answers.   

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