OCDSB looking to cut 150 full-time jobs
Families of children with complex needs fear loss of educational assistants
Ottawa's largest school board plans to cut 150 full-time positions by the next school year as it faces both a slight drop in kindergarten enrolment and a projected $20-million budget shortfall.
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) expects to find savings of $15.9 million in salaries and benefits by shedding 79.5 non-academic positions, plus another 70 teachers, principals and vice-principals.
The board sees reducing staff by 178 positions overall when it counts positions that won't have funding because it doesn't have the students to support them.
Staffing makes up 81 per cent of the board's $1.2-billion operating budget, which trustees must approve by the end of June. Setting staffing levels is one of the first steps in crafting that budget.
The number of classroom teachers needed is directly tied to enrolment. In a report that will go before trustees March 18 for detailed discussion, staff project 788 fewer students will enrol at the elementary level for the coming school year compared to the projections made last year.
The OCDSB's superintendent of employee services, Shawn Lehman, points to declining birth rates, as well as fewer kindergarten-age and international students.
That would mean a total of 50,762 students in the board's elementary schools, while high school enrolment could climb slightly to 26,196 students.
Concerns about educational assistants
Seventy-nine of the full-time positions cut would be non-academic. Those could include educational assistants, early childhood educators, office staff, social workers, psychologists, executives and support staff.
The report suggests those cuts will be "spread out across most central departments," but it also anticipates the number of educational assistants will be "slightly lower than during the 2024-2025 school year due to budget restraints."
That's a major concern the families of children with complex needs. Nearly 60 people signed a letter sent to Lehman and director of education Pino Buffone, calling on the board to rethink those cuts.
Already, children with high needs end up missing more than half their school day because of a shortage of educational assistants and a lack of support in mainstream classrooms, the letter points out. The support of educational assistants is "desperately needed" so vulnerable students can access the curriculum, they say.
Educational assistants are on the front line when a child tries to hit, kick or throw furniture, their letter says. They warn that cutting educational assistants could lead to more difficulties with children who are unable to regulate their behaviour, more employees taking sick days, and more parents switching their children to other boards.
Budget struggles
The OCDSB has been struggling with deficits for several years, and employee sick days and stagnant enrolment are already among its challenges.
The board says it's spending more on supply teachers and replacement staff, inflation is increasing the cost of everything from cleaning supplies to snow removal, and it's not receiving enough funding in special education.
When it comes to teaching positions, the board plans to spend $659 million next school year on some 4,953 academic positions and another $315 million on about 1,800 non-academic positions.
Many of the losses to teaching staff would come from increasing class sizes for e-learning, or from positions that aren't based in individual schools but instead support central departments, the report says.
School boards conduct a formal enrolment count on March 31 and Oct. 31 each year.
The OCDSB has yet to hear how much it will receive from the provincial government in core education funding, and staff say they "remain hopeful" those grants will address some of pressures.
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