CORNWALL, Ontario – Dale Fobert, President of the Eastern region of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) said that 82 teachers with the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario (CDSBEO) have received surplus notices on Friday, May 10.
Fobert cautioned that this was the beginning of the staffing process for the 2019-2020 school year and that there were still three rounds to go.
“There will be no layoffs until Aug. 31,” he said. “The way our staffing process works is that it allows teachers to fill positions over the summer if they become vacant.”
In an emailed statement to Seaway News CDSBEO Associate Director Bonnie Norton said that those teachers who are unable to secure a position by the end of June will be declared redundant and added to the Board’s recall list.
“The letters that were sent out on Friday in accordance with the OECTA collective agreement were to identify surplus to schools and system,” she wrote. “These letters were not redundancy letters. Teachers who received a surplus letter will now have the opportunity to vie for positions that will be available and posted through our vacancy, transfer and placement process which begins on May 15, 2019 and continues until the end of June 2019 for September 2019. This staffing process is consistent with previous years. It is only teachers that have not secured a position for September 2019 by the end of June 2019 that will be declared redundant and added to our recall list.”
Fobert said that he already knew that there would not be enough jobs to go around in the CDSBEO.
“There won’t be enough jobs at the end of the summer for everyone to be employed and that is the direct result of the Ford cuts,” said Fobert, referring to the changes to classroom sizes made by the Progressive Conservative Government of Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
Ford’s government increase the limit on average class sizes from 22 to 28.
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“Right now we are already dealing with class sizes of 30 or more,” said Fobert. “This will increase it to as high as 40. The cuts the Ford Government are making are going to be detrimental to the education system. We are going to be facing some serious classroom issues.”
The Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) the public education board had issued surplus notices of their own at the end of April, which saw more than 100 teachers threatened with potential layoffs.
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In that case the UCDSB claims that the reason for the potential layoffs of 100 teachers is due to the rising cost of transportation.
“We are facing a transportation deficit of $5.2 million and that is not due to any financial mismanagement on the Board’s part, but because of the arbitrated settlement we have with our transportation service,” John McAllister, Chair of the UCDSB told Seaway News in a previous interview.
