The Calgary Board of Education says it will have to eliminate 192 full-time teaching positions this fall.
Board officials made the announcement on Tuesday and the preliminary numbers are higher than originally projected.
At the beginning of May, the CBE said between 125 and 165 teaching positions and support staff positions would be eliminated. The new elimination numbers include 192 teaching positions, 79 support staff positions, and 6.5 custodial positions.
The CBE numbers comes just over a week after Calgary's Catholic board announced it would have to cut 85 full-time teaching positions to meet budgetary shortfalls.
The Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD) says, even with job eliminations and using up all its surplus, it's still facing a deficit of $3.7-million.
The Catholic board says all classes will have an extra four students starting this fall. The CBE hasn't given specifics about how much larger its classes may be.
The boards have been pressuring the province to provide more funding but the education minister maintains teaching positions do not need to be cut. "What I've said to school boards this year is ‘Please don't lay off your teachers or support staff just because of a budgetary issue. We will work with you on that and if you need to run a short-term deficit, run a short-term deficit, we will work with you on that,'" says Dave Hancock.
The CBE anticipates around 200 teachers will retire, or resign, before the fall. The board says it wants to immediately hire back any teachers it lays off, either as substitutes or contract workers, until full-time jobs are available again.
