“It is good for kids, the parents are for it and we are too, but we are looking at the price tag,” said Kirby of the program that will add about $1.5 billion annually to the education budget and was targetted by economist Don Drummond in his recommendation of cuts for the province.

Kirby suggested slowing the implementation process of full-day kindergarten to curb cuts in other sectors, specifically administration.

“Our big concerns are the cuts in the area of administration,” she said. “The province has put more reporting pressures onto boards but less administration to look after it.”

Kirby notes that when the Northeastern Catholic District School Board was formed in 1998, the region she represented grew from two townships to an entire county as 28 trustee positions were consolidated into seven. She said the process aimed at economic efficiency rarely yields the proposed savings.

“The last set of amalgamations actually cost the government over a billion dollars in transition funding,” she said. 

Despite many boards seeing reduced enrolment, Kirby suggested a 0.5-per-cent increase in classroom size. She said this would reduce the number of teachers needed without significantly impacting the quality of education.

Kevin O’Dwyer, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, disagreed with this notion and supports the government’s commitment to small class sizes.

“When you have a classroom of students in front of you, you are now dealing with a far more complex event. The day is gone when you go to the front of the blackboard, write some stuff on it and have all kids absorb the same way,” said O’Dwyer. “The class size needs to reflect that complexity.”

He also praised the budget for pledging to maintain full-day kindergarten, though he criticized the government for bringing components of the collective bargaining process into the public realm with the call for a wage freeze.