The province will be giving families between $200 and $250 per child as part of their plan to help students catch up after multiple years of learning disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The funding announcement by Education Minister Stephen Lecce came Thursday comes after the release of Ontario Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) test results, which show the students have fallen behind in math, reading, and writing.
“It could not be clearer that we must keep students in class without disruption, with a focus on catching up on the fundamentals – reading, writing and math – after two years of pandemic-related learning disruptions,” Lecce said in a statement.
“We are expanding tutoring supports, assessing every young child’s ability to read, and hiring more staff to ensure all kids get back on track and ultimately graduate into good-paying jobs. While we have provided over $600 million in learning recovery investments to publicly funded schools, we are also providing parents of all school-aged children direct financial relief that can be immediately reinvested to support their children.”
The province has provided a website portal called Catch Up Payments where parents can apply for direct payments for additional tutoring support.
“After two years of classroom and learning disruptions due to the pandemic, Ontario is committed to keeping students learning in schools,” Lecce said. “These strategic investments and initiatives will further help Ontario students get back on track and prepare them for success in the future – both inside and outside the classroom.”
They will also deploy Math Action Teams to underperforming school boards, new digital resources to support parents, students and educators, new universal screening for reading for Ontario’s youngest learners, and the extension of the government’s historic tutoring support program.
“Our government is taking action to get students back on track through our Plan to Catch Up, which includes delivering well-deserved financial relief to families across the Northwest,” Kenora-Rainy River MPP Greg Rickford wrote in a statement. “We recognize that the last two years have been difficult on students, and we are committed to preparing them for future success – both inside and outside the classroom.”
The announcement comes days after the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Ontario School Board Council of Unions announced on Monday that they received their no board report, which marks the start of a 17-day countdown to be in a legal strike position.
The unions have been in negotiation with the Ontario government since August, when the province announced their bargaining position to give educational workers a two per cent increase for staff earning under $40,000, and a 1.25 per cent for support staff, which include educational assistants, custodians, librarians, and lunchroom monitors.
On Oct 2., CUPE National President Mark Hancock and National Secretary-Treasurer Candace Rennick reported that 96.5 per cent of over 45,000 education workers represented by the Ontario School Board Council of Unions have voted to strike if a deal wasn’t met.
“My coworkers across Ontario are expecting to see an offer that shows this government understands we’ve taken forced pay cuts for the last decade and now our wages are being eroded even more by high inflation,” Laura Walton, educational assistant and president of CUPE’s Ontario School Boards Council of Unions wrote in a statement.
Leece maintained that the deal put forth by the province to the unions is fair and that the province will ensure that children’s education will continue without disruption.
