Jonathan Bernhardt didn’t need his son to depart the general public schooling system. However when he considered his autistic little one beginning highschool this fall, again in a daily classroom the place he’d possible really feel overwhelmed and distressed, he felt like he was out of choices.
Over the summer time, Bernhardt offered his Pickering residence and moved to Markham, in order that his teen can go to a personal college with small courses taught by autism therapists.
“For teenagers like my son, the present state of the general public college system is setting them as much as fail in life,” Bernhardt advised the Star.
He’s fast so as to add that he’s not essential of his son’s academics — “they’ve all bent over backwards making an attempt to know his struggles and be supportive” — however of a system that failed to supply correct school rooms with sufficient construction and assist.
Bernhardt’s determination to uproot his and his son’s life is only one household’s story. However throughout Ontario, decisions like his are a part of a broader sample contributing to declining enrolment within the publicly funded college system — a pattern that’s setting off alarm bells at many college boards.
The drop in pupil numbers is worrisome for boards as a result of funding is basically tied to enrolment, so fewer youngsters means much less cash. Nevertheless, mounted prices, like protecting the lights on, buses working and buildings open, don’t budge, so boards must make robust finances selections that will embody cuts to workers, packages — and the very helps which may persuade the following household to remain.
Why public college enrolment is declining
In keeping with the Ministry of Training, enrolment reached an “inflection level” in 2025-26, shifting from modest development to year-over-year declines, with the steepest declines anticipated in the GTA. Enrolment is declining in almost 60 per cent of Ontario college boards, representing 78 per cent of whole enrolment.
Causes embody adjustments in immigration coverage, fewer worldwide college students, declining delivery charges, households leaving the GTA and internet migration out of Ontario.
Though the overwhelming majority of Ontario college students — roughly 9 in 10, based on Statistics Canada — are within the public system, a rising share of school-aged kids, together with Bernhardt’s son, are leaving the publicly funded system altogether. Enrolment in personal colleges is up 9 per cent and home-schooling up by 33 per cent, in contrast with pre-pandemic figures, based on ministry estimates.
Kathleen Woodcock, president of the Ontario Public College Boards’ Affiliation, says Ontario’s particular schooling funding mannequin creates specific challenges for varsity boards experiencing declining enrolment. As a result of a good portion of particular schooling funding relies on total enrolment, boards can see it lower even when the quantity and complexity of scholars requiring helps stays secure or grows.
“Pupil wants don’t essentially decline on the identical price as enrolment,” she says.
‘He simply felt so terribly’
Bernhardt had deliberate on protecting his son within the public schooling system and says it could possibly accommodate youngsters like him, when correctly resourced. There was a short interval in grades 4 and 5 when his son thrived in a small contained classroom for high-functioning college students with particular schooling wants. He had mates, was joyful and cherished going to high school.
However he says the Durham public board had a two-year restrict on that program. So that they moved his son, who additionally has ADHD, anxiousness points and different studying disabilities, into a daily Grade 6 classroom of 34 college students, with solely a fraction of the assist he’d had earlier than.
He grew to become overstimulated, overwhelmed and acted out at school. His grades dropped. He was, says Bernhardt, “in a really unhealthy spot mentally.”
“He requested me if he was a nasty individual as a result of he didn’t perceive why he was having a lot bother,” recollects Bernhardt. “There was one time he mentioned he had considered simply going to sleep and never waking up as a result of issues had been simply so tough for him and he simply felt so terribly.”
Jonathan Bernhardt lately offered his Pickering residence and moved to Markham so his son may attend a personal college this fall, following years of insufficient assist within the public system.
R.J. Johnston Toronto Star
The boy was ultimately put in a small catch-up class for academically struggling college students — not a particular schooling setting and never a great match — whereas Bernhardt continued preventing for higher helps, paying out of pocket for personal tutoring and autism remedy.
Final yr, board workers advised him his son can be positioned in a daily highschool classroom for at the least a part of the day. It was a danger Bernhardt couldn’t take together with his 14-year-old. Tuition on the personal college, the place courses have a handful of scholars, runs $40,000 a yr, an quantity the one dad couldn’t handle with out his dad and mom’ assist.
Why dad and mom are searching for options
Elizabeth Dhuey, a professor of economics on the College of Toronto, suspects dad and mom are leaving the general public schooling system due to underfunding — then that exodus is used to justify additional cuts, making a downward spiral.
“They’re utilizing individuals transferring into personal college to fund much less, which causes extra dad and mom to ship their youngsters to personal college,” she says. “It’s form of this cyclical system that’s taking place.”
Dhuey believes the injury began earlier than enrolment started declining and that years of cuts drove middle-class households out of a system they felt couldn’t present fundamental providers.
She is aware of this primary hand. She moved her son, a brilliant child with ADHD, into a personal college after the Toronto public system stripped all the extras that assist youngsters like him succeed: motion breaks, music courses, out of doors time and differentiated instruction. Her daughter, nonetheless, who thrives in a standard classroom setting, nonetheless attends a Toronto public college.
On the subject of the rise in home-schooling, advocates warning towards viewing the pattern as merely households leaving the general public system. Curiosity in home-schooling accelerated throughout and after the COVID-19 pandemic, they are saying, and displays dad and mom exercising better selection over their youngsters’ schooling for a variety of causes, which embody higher assembly particular person wants and incorporating spiritual or cultural values.
David Mastin, president of the Elementary Academics’ Federation of Ontario, attracts a distinction between elements driving the decline. For example, falling delivery charges and immigration coverage adjustments are largely outdoors the province’s management, however households intentionally leaving the publicly funded system is a special matter.
“If we supplied a high-quality public schooling system, dad and mom wouldn’t be making that selection,” he says, including that years of underfunding have degraded the general public schooling system. “From a public service perspective, if we will’t present the service individuals anticipate, they’re going to search for options.”
How dropping enrolment causes monetary pressure
Whereas enrolment is up in some areas of the province — the east is secure, whereas the central and southwest anticipate modest development — it’s not within the GTA, the place board officers suspect the price of residing contributes to households leaving the area. The Toronto District College Board anticipates about 5,000 fewer college students (a 2.1 per cent decline) in 2026-27, a part of a downward pattern anticipated till 2030. The decline, closely concentrated in elementary colleges, is pushed by households transferring out of town, a drop in newcomers and fewer school-aged kids. In the meantime, town’s Catholic board additionally expects about 1,000 fewer college students.
Close by boards face related pressures: Peel tasks 4,200 fewer college students; York 6,400; Halton 900; and Durham 100. The province gives a short lived declining enrolment adjustment to cushion the blow; on the TDSB that fund jumped 52 per cent this yr to $19 million, an quantity already factored into the board’s total funding.
Nonetheless, the monetary pressure is actual. The TDSB’s core schooling funding for 2026-27 is $3.38 billion, and whole income is projected to lower $48.2 million, pushed largely by fewer college students. As it really works to get rid of a remaining $15-million deficit, decrease enrolment has been cited as a key cause for chopping staffing positions, with spending on classroom academics reduce by $27.1 million.
John Weatherup, president of Toronto Training Staff CUPE Native 4400, believes declining enrolment is “an excuse to not fund the boards correctly.” He says the actual challenge is that the province has by no means absolutely funded what it prices boards to function. He notes that in earlier years, the TDSB cited underfunding as the first cause for its monetary woes, and solely after it was put below authorities supervision did the messaging shift to declining enrolment.
The Ministry of Training, nonetheless, says the federal government is making document investments in publicly funded schooling. Core Training Funding is projected to succeed in $30.6 billion in 2026-27 — a rise of $7.2 billion, or 30.8 per cent, since 2017-18, which the ministry says outpaces the 27.1 per cent price of inflation over the identical interval. It additionally says per-pupil funding elevated over this era. And, that since 2018, about 11,500 further workers, together with 4,600 instructional assistants have been added. The Particular Training Fund, in the meantime, is projected to succeed in $3.83 billion in 2026-27 regardless of declining enrolment, it says.
However a report launched this week by the Canadian Centre for Coverage Options tells a special story. When adjusted for inflation and enrolment, it says per-student funding has declined and stays $220 decrease than in 2018. The accrued funding hole since 2018 — the distinction between what boards acquired and what they might have wanted to maintain tempo with inflation and enrolment development — now stands at $6.5 billion, it says. “Colleges and educators are being requested to do extra with much less, and college students are paying the value,” it concludes.
Time to rethink college funding?
Katrina Matheson, father or mother organizer with the Toronto Colleges Caregiver Coalition and a former co-chair of the TDSB’s father or mother advisory committee, says situations in many faculties have turn out to be untenable.
“Dad and mom are pulling their youngsters out as a result of the educational program is weak, undifferentiated and lacks complete supplies, and in lots of instances as a result of their youngsters are being victimized by their friends as a consequence of bullying and emotional dysregulation, mixed with an absence of staffing assist,” she says.
Staffing is “skeletal,” she says, lunchroom supervision ratios in some colleges exceed 100 college students to at least one workers member and in lots of instances, college students with particular wants are put in common courses with no further assist.
Paris Semansky, co-executive director of the advocacy group Individuals for Training, says the second requires a rethink of how schooling is funded, noting different provinces, equivalent to Nova Scotia, moved to a mannequin that has much less reliance on enrolment.
“These kinds of adjustments give us a possibility to take a look at whether or not or not now we have the best fashions in place,” she says. “Perhaps that is the best one. Perhaps it’s not.”
Bernhardt, for his half, hasn’t misplaced religion within the concept of public schooling — solely the present actuality of it.
“I’m very a lot for the notion of the general public college system. I consider that everybody ought to have entry and alternative for a correct schooling,” he says. “Sadly, the present state of the general public college system, as a consequence of its power underfunding, is simply not in a position to try this.”