51 Sudbury teachers with Rainbow Board received redundancy notices, union says

The union representing secondary teachers with the Rainbow District School Board in Sudbury says 51 teachers were issued redundancy notices on Friday.

School boards across Ontario have said there will be job lossesdue to changes in the education system. Average class sizes in secondary schools will go up and students will be required to do more courses online.

James Clyke, the president of the Ontario Secondary School TeachersFederation for District 3 in Sudbury says the number of notices handed out is up from previous years.

"The redundancy line is going back all the way, like close to 10 years, the people that are going to be redundant they have 10 years teaching experience," he said.

"Usually it's, you know, somewhere around seven, you have seven or eight years in and you'restill redundant now we're up to about 10."

Clyke says the Rainbow District School Board told the union it tried to keep the numbers as low as possible.

"I feel that the school board has done the best that they possibly can, we've had conversations with them on numerous occasions and I know that they're doing the best they can to limit the amount of redundancies and surpluses," he said.

"They've really worked hard on it and as you can tell our numbers are not as bad as I thought they would be."

Clyke says some of these teachers will be hired back, once enrolment and class size numbers are finalized.

Last week, the union representing secondary teachers in the North Bay area announced about 50 per cent of teachers in that area received redundancy notices. The board chair says it's confident none of those teachers will lose their jobs.