Not enough kids: Catholic school board forced to keep nearly 100 teachers at home

WINDSOR, Ontario, September 4, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Another school year started yesterday, but declining enrollment has forced one Catholic school board in Ontario to not rehire almost 100 teachers in an effort to check an almost $18 million ballooning deficit.

In a report last April, supervisor of the Windsor‐Essex Catholic District School Board Norbert Hartmann blamed “changing demographics” as one of the primary causes of the bleak financial situation faced by the Board.

According to Hartmann’s report for the last school year, about half of the Board’s thirty-eight elementary schools are “underutilized”, meaning that they are using less than 85 per cent of the available space. Schools that fall below the 85 per cent “utilization threshold” cost the board more to operate than what government funding provides.

Hartmann called school underutilization an “important contributor to the structural deficit,” pointing out that the problem could be addressed with the closure of nine average-sized elementary schools within the Board.  (more...)

Not enough kids: Catholic school board forced to keep nearly 100 teachers at home