Teacher unions: Don’t blame us for Thames Valley school board budget woes

London-area teachers union leaders are slamming any suggestion that Thames Valley District school board budget woes are related to educator sick days or long-term leaves.

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It’s inadequate funding from Queen’s Park, not the costs related to substitute teachers, that have driven the London-based school board’s spending shortfall, says John Bernans, a local leader with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.

“Blaming workers for the budget shortfall is unfair,” he said. “The underfunding of education is the root cause of the budget shortfall.”

Arguing Thames Valley funding is tens of millions of dollars shy of where it should be, Bernans added: “The board will never be able to make up that shortfall by reducing staff illness.”

Thames Valley officials had cut the deficit to $7.6 million from $18 million earlier this year after slashing 124 positions. But that figure has jumped back up to $16.5 million due to a miscalculation in the number of students attending its schools this year, and thus a cut in funding. So the board is now cutting the equivalent of 33 high school teaching jobs to help balance its books

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In fall 2023, board officials originally said mental-health leaves for teachers, education assistants and early childhood educators since the COVID-19 pandemic began had created a $16-million budget hole. Associate director Linda Nicholls, now on paid leave, told trustees at that time absence costs had jumped by $13 million from 2018 to 2022.

By February 2024, the school board was facing an $18.5-million budget deficit, with officials saying it was driven largely by a jump in sick days for educators and long-term leave for mental health issues.

But Craig Smith, president of the Thames Valley district of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, said “it’s not true” that teachers are to blame for the board’s financial struggles.

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“Clearly teacher sick day usage is not the cause of the board’s budget problems,” he said. “We have always taken a very strict view in terms of the usage of sick days. . . they are used for their intended purpose.”

He said teachers work with children, which means “they are exposed to all sorts of illness,” adding: “We’re susceptible to that and we get sick.”

There has been an uptick in board-approved sick leaves, Smith said. “These are situations the board knows about because they are documented.”

Violence in schools has also taken a toll on teachers, he said, prompting days off to recover.

Full-time teachers get 11 sick days a year at full salary and longer-terms leaves of 120 days at 90 per cent of their salary, Smith said.

In 2012, the Ontario government reduced the number of annual sick days for education workers to 11 from 20 and removed the ability to bank unused days, he said.

In an interview last week Bill Tucker, the board’s interim director, said over the last year teacher sick days have “remained constant,” noting there was a “slight decrease” from November 2023 to November 2024.

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