The Greater Essex County District School Board will vote Tuesday on a multi-year financial recovery plan that includes cuts to special education programs.
Administration is recommending the board approve the plan and submit it to the Ministry of Education for approval to address an in-year deficit of over $6.3 million.
If approved, the plan would result in the elimination of 34.5 positions in the Reaching Individual Success and Excellence, or RISE, special education program.
Mario Spagnuolo, President of the Greater Essex local of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, says the students would then be put into homerooms for the full day and would not receive the intensive one-on-one support they receive in the RISE program.
"What's frustrating is that the government and the board are balancing their budgets on the backs of students with special needs, who are the students who need our help as an education system the most," he says. "They already come to school with their own obstacles and challenges, and we need to do all we can to get them through a pathway to see them to success."
Spagnuolo says the funding formula for special education is flawed and needs to be reformed.
"The special education formula that they use is over 20 years old. It is outdated and needs to be reformed, and no government has taken that on," he says. "What we're dealt with today is boards across the province dealing with structural deficits. So there is no spending problem here; there is a funding problem."
In June, trustees approved the board's 2024-25 operating budget with an in-year deficit of over $6.3 million, representing 1.4 per cent of the board’s operating allocation.
Under the Education Act, the Minister of Education must approve a deficit, which was received in early September under the condition that the board submit a multi-year financial recovery plan to achieve a balanced budget by 2026-27.
The plan also calls for cuts to office supplies, secondary school part-time school aids, classroom supplies, professional development, and the elimination of the central budget for student athletic transportation.
Trustees with the Greater Essex County District School Board meeting Nov. 5 at 6 p.m. in the board office at 451 Park Street West in Windsor.