The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is shining a light on how school boards across the province are spending their COVID-19 relief funding.
An online article and interactive map, shows the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board hired 77 new staff to support students through the pandemic, including 58 teachers, six custodians, two special education and mental health support staff and nine other administrative positions.
That works out to about 2.1 new staff members per school.
The Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic School Board hired 31 new staff, including 19 teachers, five custodians and seven other staff members, for an average of 0.8 new staff members per school.
The article goes on to point out that while the Ontario Government is touting its aggressive spending plans to keep schools safe, financial documents show that the majority of the money is coming from school board reserves and the Federal Government, not the province, and notes that Ontario is not planning to provide any more pandemic-related funding through the 2021/22 school year.
The CCPA says COVID-19 funding includes provincial funding, federal Safe Restart funding, and funding drawn from school boards’ own reserves and says of the almost $655 million used to hire additional staffing, $304 million (46%) came from the boards themselves.
The remaining $351 million came from governments, of which at least $119 million was federal funding.
