TORONTO - The Ontario government says it is slashing millions of dollars in funding for programs that are aimed at providing students with extra skills and support.
The Ministry of Education says the province's 72 school boards were notified that $25 million in cuts were made after the government reviewed the ``Education Programs - Other'' fund and found that the fund has a ``track record of wasteful spending.''
The fund, which will now total $400 million for the 2018-2019 fiscal year, provides students with a range of programs and supports such as tutors, leadership programming as well as French and Indigenous programming.
An email sent to school boards Friday contains a list of programs that will see their funding reduced or cancelled. The cancellations include programs that provide tutors in classrooms, and extra services for Indigenous and otherwise racialized students.
The ministry says the cuts will affect each school board differently, as the boards don't all provide the same programs under the fund.
"There's a lot of unknowns right now," Toronto District School Board chair Robin Pilkey told NEWSTALK1010. "I think that in the next few weeks, it will become a lot clearer what the actual effect of this will be for each board. But right now we just don't know."
"It is concerning, obviously, because these programs are in effect already, so we are going to have to stop different programs."
Pilkey said the email was only sent to staff and not trustees, but it was in a form that was extremely difficult to interpret. As a result, staff had to return to work on Saturday to go through all ofd the documents that were attached to the email.
Maria Rizzo, chair of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, says she was ``blindsided'' by the funding cuts and worries how special needs students in her board will be affected.
- With files from Jackie Rosen/NEWSTALK1010