As Ontario’s public schools struggle with staffing, over a quarter of schools report being unable to fully staff teachers each day, while nearly half are dealing with daily shortages of educational assistants, according to a new survey.
In a report released Sunday, the advocacy group People for Education found that 24 per cent of elementary schools and 35 per cent of secondary schools are experiencing daily teacher shortages.
Shortages are even higher for educational assistants, who support children with special needs, with nearly half of elementary and secondary schools reporting they’re short-staffed each day.
Findings from the report are based on 1,030 responses to an annual survey, collected from principals across 70 of Ontario’s 72 publicly funded school boards. This represents 21 per cent of the publicly funded schools in the province.