The Upper Grand District School Board has issued layoff notices to 56 high school teachers in the wake of funding cuts and funding uncertainty.
It is the first time the board has laid off high school teachers in 16 years.
The move comes less than a week after layoff notices were issued to 54 elementary teachers within the board.
The reason for the layoff of the high school teachers is pretty much the same as the reasons given for the elementary layoffs.
“We are in the unfortunate position of having to issue redundancy notices to 56 of our secondary teachers,” said board spokesperson Heather Loney in an email to GuelphToday.
“The reason we are in this position is due to declining enrolment, the loss of the Local Priorities Fund, and other funding implications such as a loss in provincial revenue including significant changes to secondary class size funding.”
The layoffs affect positions starting in September and do not affect any teachers for the current school year.
“The reason these notices are being issued at this time is because we must adhere to timelines outlined in our collective agreements on communicating potential redundancy to individual teachers in the system.
“We wanted to issue these notices as soon as possible so that affected teachers could be made aware.
“We haven’t had to do this in many years. The last time we issued notices of redundancy in the secondary panel was 2003,” Loney said.
Funding details for the 2019-2020 school year are expected from the provincial government at the end of April and the UGDSB hopes after that they will be able to rehire as many of the affected teachers as possible.
“It is our sincere hope that we will be able to recall as many of these teachers as possible. Where possible, we are hoping to minimize the impact of these funding changes on our students and staff.
“But we know, moving forward, that we are working with less provincial funding and fewer funded positions in our system,” Loney said.
