Northeastern Ontario school boards forced to be 'creative' after millions in funding cuts

The memo from the Ministry of Education came late Friday.

So school board officials spent Monday combing through budgets and calculating out how much these cuts were going to hurt.

The Ontario government announced late last week it is cutting $25 million in funding for specialized programs in elementary and secondary schools across the province.

AlgomaDistrict School Boardchair Jennifer Sarlo says they do know that money for encouraging kids to stay in school and support them with tutors in the classroom, is on the chopping block.

"Sometimes all it takes is that caring adult reaching out to someone to say 'Hey, we miss you. Is there anyway we can help you get back to school? What kind of supports might you need?' So, we've had a lot of success," she says, adding that graduate rates have increased since the Re-engagement program started.

Sarlo says her board still doesn't know the extent of the cuts and doesn't expect to have all the answers until the new year.

"We understand that there is only so much money to go around and we understand that we all need to be fiscally responsible. But we are concerned," she says.

"We don't want to go backwards with education."

District School Board Ontario Northeast eduction director LesleighDye says there are 11 programs on the list, some of which are being eliminated immediately and others which are being reduced.

She says they includeeverything from teacher training to classroomtechnologyto a program requiring elementary students to get physical activity every day.

Dye says she finds it "very disconcerting" that two Indigenous programs on the lista grant for student-led projects and cultural training for school staff.

She says the numbers haven't been crunched yet, but she figures it will carve hundreds of thousands of dollarsand maybe as many as 10 jobsout of the board budget that was set back in the spring.

"The government is now telling us, 'No, you don't have the funding,'" says Dye.

"There will be significant changes in our district. We're going to have to be very creative. But it's going to mean less for our students and our staff."