Thousands of student time-tables and staff assignments were redone months ago
QUEEN’S PARK — Students, parents, teachers, education workers and the NDP have blasted Doug Ford’s scheme to hike class sizes — and an eleventh-hour attempt to soften that bad news by the Ford government won’t save students who have already registered for gigantic classes that start in a couple weeks.
“When Doug Ford revealed a plan to hike average class sizes and cut teachers, that’s when schools, school boards and students had to undertake the monumental task of redoing course offerings and student timetables for thousands of students,” said NDP Education critic Marit Stiles.
“Mr. Ford knows darn well that all that work can’t be redone in the next 10 days.”
According to an announcement by Education Minister Stephen Lecce on Thursday, Ford’s class size hike is still going ahead – but he denies that calculated averages will change dramatically for this school year.
“Mr. Lecce and Mr. Ford want to dodge the criticism they’re getting for this horrific cut to our children’s schools,” said Stiles. “But yet again they’re using kids as political pawns. On Thursday, they tried to change messaging — not change their cuts. Class sizes are going up, thousands of teacher and education worker jobs are being cut, and Ontario’s schools are going to get worse instead of better.
“Students and educators don’t need better spin from a minister, or a slower roll-out of painful cuts. They need Doug Ford to cancel his cuts, cancel his class size hikes, and cancel his plan to take teachers and education workers away from students who need them.”