‘Those days are done:’ Doug Ford says elementary teachers will no longer have to pay out of pocket for supplies

Premier Ford announced 'supplies cards' for every teacher, so they can purchase their own classroom supplies when needed such as stationery and tissues.

Some Ontario teachers will soon have a way to easily buy supplies for their classrooms.

Starting in September, elementary school homeroom teachers will be getting $750 cards each year to purchase classroom supplies.

“The days of teachers having to put their hands in their own pockets to pay for school supplies, those days are done,” Premier Doug Ford said at a classroom at a school in Etobicoke Wednesday, flanked by Education Minister Paul Calandra and Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy.

Ford recalled recently meeting teachers shopping for classroom supplies at Dollarama and paying out of their own pockets.

“Sure enough, a couple weeks later, same scenario, I met a few teachers, and I offered to pay for them. I think one I paid for one, but the other said, no, no, that’s fine,” he recalled.

Calandra said he sometimes finds himself in similar situations.

“The same thing happens to me at the Stouffville Walmart. You know, I always run into teachers who are out there buying something. So this cuts that out,” he said.

The supplies teachers will be able to order will include arts and crafts materials, stationery and paper products, posters and decorations and paper towels and tissues.

The program will cost $66 million in new funding, the province told CTV News Toronto.

Calandra said the province decided on the $750 amount based on feedback from teachers.

“Our teachers are educators. They work very hard, and in discussions with them, they said ‘look, this is what we need.’ It’s an amount that makes sense to them,” Calandra said. “If they don’t use it in a year, it’ll roll over to the next year and they can continue to use it.”

Teachers will be able to order the items through a new website that will be set up in the summer.

The province says the move will make it easier for teachers to get the materials they need when they need them.

Ford said the items will likely be purchased in bulk by the province to get better prices.

Speaking at a news conference at Queen’s Park Wednesday, Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) President David Mastin welcomed the news about the purchasing cards, but said the government should not be presenting the idea as if it’s a gift ahead of bargaining.

The announcement comes a day after Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy announced a date of March 26 for the government’s latest budget and gives one of the first clues about what will be included.

Teachers say items should be included in regular education budget

“Certainly any investment in education is well received. I think our members will be happy to have some sort of investment,” Mastin said.

“But I would say generally that the government is trying to make us believe that this is a gift that’s being given prior to what is going to be probably a very contentious round of central bargaining, and we shouldn’t be looking at Kleenex, paper towel, pencils, pens and paper stationery as gifts. These things should be an automatic in education.”

In a statement, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) called the purchase card announcement “an admission” of chronic underfunding in classrooms and noted it excludes high school teachers.

“It’s like handing a firefighter a cheque and telling them to buy a hose before they show up to put out a fire,” OSSTF President Martha Hradowy said in a statement. “The real solution is properly funding schools, so the resources students and educators need are already there.”

Calandra said that while the program is initially being made available just to elementary school teachers, it could be expanded in the future.

“I’m absolutely certain that we’re going to start hearing from some of the secondary teachers, specific secondary teachers who have certain challenges,” he said.

“So this is a start of what I think can be something that is not only beneficial to our elementary side, but perhaps in the future, we can look at more specifically targeted supports for secondary school teachers as well.”