With $6.4M deficit, Windsor public school board considers staff cuts

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Facing a $6.4-million deficit, the Windsor-Essex public school board will consider Tuesday night a financial plan that would cut almost 63 full-time positions and eliminate the special education RISE program by next year. 

International baccalaureate programs could also be dropped at the elementary and secondary school levels.

The Multi-Year Financial Recovery Plan was prepared for Greater Essex County District School Board trustees in response to the Education Ministry’s instructions to eliminate the board’s multimillion-dollar deficit by the 2026-27 school year. 

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In June, the board passed its 2024-25 budget with the deficit, representing 1.4 per cent of the board’s funding from the province. That spending plan required approval from the ministry to allow use of its accumulated surpluses to cover the shortfall, with the knowledge that those surpluses could be depleted by the 2026-27 school year. 

At the time, the board cut 21 positions but rejected a proposal for deeper cuts in an attempt to keep its special education programs in place. 

“Due to long wait lists for supports/assessments for their children and due to underfunding of community services and agencies, many families are relying on the board to provide these much-needed supports,” the board’s financial plan says. 

“The special education funding formula (from the provincial government) does not contemplate this reality and is inadequate in addressing the growing and complex needs of students.” 

The board has several programs with varying degrees of help for special education students, but the RISE program has faced the most scrutiny, with several parents and union officials appearing at meetings to urge trustees not to cut the program. 

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RISE — Reaching Individual Success and Excellence — provides elementary school students half-day instruction in English and math outside the regular classroom. Mario Spagnuolo, president of the Greater Essex Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, has been campaigning to save the program and its staff, saying those students would otherwise be integrated into regular classrooms. 

“Special education will bear the brunt of the reduction where we’re overspent because the needs of the kids are continuing to increase from year to year,” he told the Star. “If (trustees) support this — because trustees can turn it down — it’s going to be on the back of kids with special needs.” 

Failure to eliminate the board’s deficit has previously resulted in speculation by trustees that the province would take over the board’s operations.

For some time, the board has carried about 800 positions that are not specifically funded by the province to try to keep the special education programs going, in part because help for those children is underfunded in the community.  

Integrating the special needs program back into classrooms — which has already been enacted at other school boards — has the potential to cause social problems due to frustrated students who are unable to keep up, Spagnuolo said. 

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“Integrating them into a classroom of about 25 to 30 kids, I can’t see how the needs are going to be met. I would argue we’re doing them a further disservice and we will see violent incident rates increase.” 

The deficit in special education funding for the board is $10,104,897, the financial plan says. 

“One of its most significant special education costs is related to its fully self-contained classrooms,” the report says. “With a growing influx of students with complex special education needs, it is apparent that many of these students cannot be accommodated in a regular classroom.” 

Positions outlined for possible elimination include:  

• 34.5 positions by restructuring supports for RISE students; 
• 15.5 central office positions via attrition where possible; 
• Two non-bargaining employees via attrition; 
• 1 international baccalaureate position at the elementary school level and 2.8 positions at the secondary school level; 
• Two social worker positions (which provide applied suicide intervention skills training, violence threat risk assessment training and support to educators for integrating mental health strategies into their instruction); 
• Five psychologists and speech language pathologists.

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The board would also reduce the budget for occasional staff to cover absences. 

The board had recently commissioned a study of the RISE program by staff from York University, Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Windsor. 

That review identified several “areas of concern,” the report says, including mixed academic results; that it predominantly serves white, male, English-speaking students; and that families are seeking external services to support their children outside of the RISE program. 

The board has 216.4 teachers and 441 full-time equivalent educational assistant positions mainly supporting special education programs that are not specifically funded by the province. Funding is pulled from other areas in the budget. 

“We’re going to be integrating students into the home room for the whole day,” Spagnuolo said. “The school will say they’re readjusting in real life, but we know what that means … these kids will not get the proper support that they need because we see it in kids that are on waiting lists right now.” 

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