248 fewer people will be working in Toronto's public high schools this fall.

Trustees at the Toronto District School Board have begrudgingly approved a plan for staffing their schools for the coming school year.

It includes cutting 115 secondary school teachers. Another 133 guidance counsellors, vice principals, secretaries & special education staff will dissapear from high schools too.

The move will save the board over $27-million.

It took more than 4 hours of debate, a handful of different motions with dozens of edits & almost constant sniping, but in a 10-6 vote, trustees adopted all of the recommendations of a human resources report.

With secondary enrolment dropping & the TDSB staring down a deficit of $55-million, most trustees felt they had no choice but to follow through with the cuts.

The TDSB expects to have 2,400 fewer high school students this fall.

While all 248 staffers will be pink-slipped in the coming month based on seniority, the number of cuts could still change. Retiring teachers, fluctuations in enrolment & the TDSB's final budget could impact the cutbacks.  While the the board can called laid off teachers back to work as late as September, they can't declare any more surplus before then because of a rules around timing in their contract with OSSTF.

Trustees OKed hiring 62 more elementary teachers & 338 early childhood educators because of an uptick in the board's young learners, mostly in full-day kindergarten.