The Ford government promised $750 a year for elementary teachers to buy supplies. It turns out it's not all new money

The spending accounts, announced in March, are meant to avoid teachers paying out-of-pocket for crucial items such as art supplies, paper towels and pencils, using one, central online portal with better prices than they’d pay on their own. Union leaders say classroom supplies should already be provided to school boards.

The Ontario Principals’ Council said the investment is welcome, but found it disappointing that the $750 amount was originally presented as completely new funding when it comes out of already stretched school budgets.

“Principals and vice-principals are being asked, once again, to do more with limited resources,” reads a council statement to the Star, in which the organization also lamented ongoing budgeting gaps related to staff and support workers.

“It’s all a shell game from the government,” said New Democrat MPP Chandra Pasma, the party’s education critic. “This isn’t brand-new supplies flooding the classroom. It’s the government trying to get away from properly funding our schools.”

In a statement to the Star, Education Minister Paul Calandra’s press secretary, Emma Testani, said the province wanted to put the funds directly into the hands of teachers.

“While school boards have long received provincial funding for classroom resources, we have not seen those dollars consistently reach teachers and classrooms,” reads Testani’s statement. “This funding is protected for classroom use and goes directly to teachers, ensuring they no longer have to rely on boards.”

The fund totals $66 million per school year as part of the province’s recent spring budget. Excluded from accessing the $750 reserve are those who teach high school, music and French, among others.

René Jansen in de Wal, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, worries about burdening teachers with the extra work of shopping for school supplies when they’re already overstretched amid what he called an education budget shortfall driven by provincial investment that in recent years has often failed to keep up with inflation.

He recalled stories of teachers resorting to using copy paper from home and using complimentary pens from hotels.

“It’s crazy that he’s normalizing that teachers, who’ve been taking their time and money to subsidize (supplies) because of the cuts,” Jansen in de Wal said, “should spend even more time to stock their classrooms.”

His concerns were echoed by the president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, David Mastin, who said the province is reducing elementary educators to “purchasers of tissue paper.”

“These types of announcements … are gradually trying to shift the public’s perception about what teachers do,” said Mastin. “It’s all part of a very, very strategic project that this government has to reduce the public’s trust in these highly trained, amazing professionals.”

Mastin said school boards and even individual schools are equipped to administer supply programs, but only if they’re provided the proper funding. 

“Just give the money to school boards so they can fund everything. Not just consumables, but special education supports, smaller class sizes, more EAs, more child and youth workers,” Mastin, said. “These are where the difference makers lie in public education.” 

It’s believed that Ontario may be the first province to provide teachers with individual funds, though some U.S. states have similar programs, such as debit cards for approved supplies.

Jansen in de Wal said this is another step toward American-style services.

“We all know that they do less by spending more and it hasn’t helped them,” he said of both the education and health-care systems in the U.S. “Those are two things that make us very different from the United States, and I’m proud of everything that public schools have done in Canada.”

With files from Kristin Rushowy