Horwath vows to fight Ford's plan to eliminate class size cap

Children shouldn’t have to pay for Ford’s cuts

Official Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath says more students will fall through the cracks if Doug Ford eliminates the cap on class sizes in Ontario schools, and she's vowing to fight the move.

"Today, students often don't get the one-on-one attention they deserve in the classroom," said Horwath. "All kids deserve the big benefits of smaller class sizes, and that means we need more teachers, not fewer."

The Ford government announced Wednesday it may remove caps on class sizes in kindergarten and in Grades 1 to 3. Today in Ontario, the kindergarten class size cap is 29 students. Horwath wants to move to a hard cap for kindergarten classes of no more than 26 children. For primary grades the cap is 23 students.

"Classrooms are often already crowded and if class sizes grow, teachers will be stretched even thinner," said Horwath. "Behavioural challenges will become harder to control. Meeting the needs of multiple learning-ability levels will become even more difficult.

"More students will fall through the cracks if class sizes get any bigger — we can't let Doug Ford do that to kids."

Horwath said it's especially troubling that Ford is looking to children to pay for his cuts. The Ford government has already cut $25 million from school programs and another $100 million from planned school repairs.

"Kids deserve more from the government, not less," said Horwath.