HomeMy WebLinkAboutPresentation to the Ottawa Town Hall, Ontario Budget Consultation
Oral Presentation to the Ottawa Town Hall, Ontario Budget Consultation
29 January 2021
When we made our submission to you in the pre-budget consultation last October,
the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board highlighted five specific areas of funding
support for school boards as front-line service providers.
Since then, it has become ever clearer that the impacts of Covid-19 will continue to
be felt through the coming year. Students have suffered significant learning losses,
particularly our most vulnerable special education students, our English Language
Learners, and all those children exhibiting dysregulated behaviour and mental health
issues. The pandemic has also highlighted the inequitable achievement outcomes
associated with societal ills such as racism and poverty.
The additional staff and supports you funded in the current school year will continue
to be needed to address those learning gaps and to ensure that health and safety
measures can be maintained until Covid-19 is no longer an omnipresent threat. Any
large-scale reduction in staffing for the coming school year would have a significant
detrimental effect on students and on the local economy.
We ask you to maintain or enhance funding for school districts, funding that is
essential to helping our students catch up and keep up – for additional teachers and
support staff to support learning needs, mental health, technology, health and safety
– essential expenses that will be a continuing pressure on education budgets
through the 2021-2022 school year. Special education,
English-as-a-second-language, mental health and equity are challenges that cannot
be ignored.
We also ask you to cover the shortfalls incurred to address Covid-19 and to restore
the reserve funds set aside for other significant one-time needs that were redirected
to pay for Covid-19 related resources, and we ask you to consider the impact of
inflation on many of our costs.
Ontario cannot afford to let a whole generation of children lose out on the
high-quality public education for which Ontario is known around the world. In the
longer term, preparing our students for future success as citizens and contributors to
the social and economic health of the Province of Ontario is key to supporting
Ontario’s recovery from the devastating impacts of COVID-19 over the coming years.
Thank you for your attention to our requests. We look forward to seeing them
reflected in the next provincial budget.
Sincerely,
Lynn Scott
Chair of the Board
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