Catholic school board facing cuts after budget shortfall

Mar 3, 2015 | News

The Toronto Catholic School Board will be cutting 300 jobs to balance the budget.

The Toronto Catholic School Board will be cutting 300 jobs to balance the budget. (Photo: Comfort Obeng)

By Comfort Obeng

The Toronto Catholic District School Board prepared Tuesday for an evening meeting talking about budget concerns and possibly job cuts.

The board is reported to have gone $42.5 million over budget. What it is trying to do now is balancing the budget and looking at cutting 300 jobs.

The jobs that will be affected are primary and junior literacy intervention teachers, special need teachers and library technicians. By doing so they will save about $30 million, a Catholic board budget report showed.

Maria Cina, a special need teacher with the Board, told Humber News on Tuesday that she hopes that this really won’t be the case when she thinks about all the jobs that will be lost.

“Resource teachers and non teaching staff who work with the board like your co-op resource teacher, your math resource teacher or your literacy resource teacher people like that their looking to cut back. So they wouldn’t be at the board anymore they have to come back to classes, to schools,” Cina said.

The budget committee released a summary of the meeting that will be take place and the proposed cuts. They include:

  • Fifth Block & Junior Literacy Intervention program teachers
  • Secondary Teachers
  • Preparation-Time Teachers
  • Secondary Student Supervisors
  • Contracted Child Support Workers  and Educational Assistants
  • Child & Youth Workers and Social  Workers

“I could possibly lose support staff,”said Cina.

Cina said it might happen that a resource teacher might have to monitor a larger group of students in the classroom.

When it comes to cutting, Cina suggested board members start with their own ranks.

“They need to start at the top – maybe looking at salary from senior staff members before they go and touch schools and teachers and specific programs that are very important,” said Cina.

The cuts can only help so much with the deficit. If the cuts do save them 30 million they still have to deal with the existing balance of  12.5 million. What the board plans to do about the 12.5 million could be part of the discussion.