EDUCATION FUNDING

PRINCIPLES OF THE CURRENT FUNDING SYSTEM

The current funding system is intended to:

  • provide a fair allocation for all students, wherever they live in Ontario;
  • provide funding to maintain schools and to build new schools where they are needed;
  • allow boards significant flexibility to decide how funds will be allocated to programs and support services and how funds are allocated to their schools;
  • restrict ways in which boards spend money in some specific areas (e.g., to protect funding for capital expenditures and for special education, and to limit spending on board administration);
  • promote the accountability of school boards by ensuring that boards report consistently on how they spend their allocations.

Current Roles and Responsibilities in the Funding of Education

The government is responsible for:

  • determining each board’s overall funding level;
  • setting tax rates for the education property taxes that municipalities collect and forward to boards on a quarterly basis;
  • providing the provincial grant portion of board budgets on a monthly basis;
  • monitoring board expenditures and adjusting cash flow accordingly;
  • ensuring that boards comply with the requirements of the funding regulations and the Education Act.

Each district school board is responsible for:

  • developing and managing the board’s budget in line with the board’s funding allocation;
  • allocating resources to schools (e.g., staff and funds for learning materials) so that they can provide programs to their students;
  • developing and implementing a capital plan (including a plan for school closures where required) that includes local input;
  • ensuring that it complies with the requirements of the funding regulations and Education Act.

Current System for Funding Education

Under the current education funding system, the government sets the total allocation amounts. Funding for school board operations comes from two sources:

  • provincial allocations to boards through the School Board Operating Grant, which are set by the Ministry of Education
  • the educational portion of property tax, for which the rates are set by the Ministry of Finance

Financial Accountability

School boards are accountable to the government and taxpayers for their expenditures. Boards are also accountable to parents and taxpayers for aligning resources appropriately with local priorities.

School boards must abide by a set of rules for financial accountability. Within these rules, however, boards have considerable flexibility. The rules are as follows:

  • Boards must submit a balanced budget. If they incur a deficit during the year, they must make up the deficit in following years.
  • Funding for education in the classroom must be used only for that purpose.
  • Special education funding must only be used for special education.
  • Boards must not spend more on administration and governance than the amount allocated for this purpose.
  • Funding for new schools, additions, and major repairs to schools must be used only for these purposes.

FUNDING GRANT STRUCTURE

Foundation Grant

The Foundation Grant provides for the core education of every student, and covers classroom costs such as costs for the following:

  • teachers
  • supply teachers
  • teaching assistants
  • classroom supplies
  • textbooks and learning materials
  • classroom computers
  • library services
  • guidance services
  • classroom consultants
  • professionals and paraprofessionals

School Foundation Grant

In 2006-07 a new School Foundation Grant was introduced to consolidate funding for in-school administration and leadership (principals, vice-principals, school secretaries) and office supplies. The grant provides funding for a full-time principal and school secretary for all eligible schools (with 50+ students) and 0.5 full time equivalent of a principal for schools with fewer than 50 students. Parts of other grants that provided for school administration costs were reduced.

Pupil Accommodation Grant

The Pupil Accommodation Grant is intended to help boards pay for the following:

  • the building of new schools (New Pupil Places allocation)
  • operating and maintenance costs, such as heating, lighting, and cleaning (School Operations allocation)
  • repairs and renovations (School Renewal allocation)
  • capital debt-servicing costs

Special Purpose Grants

The ten Special Purpose Grants recognize the different circumstances faced by students and school boards:

Special Education Grant. This is a two-part grant. The first part provides flexible funding to meet the needs of most exceptional students, and the second part is proportional to the number of students in each board who require extensive special education support services.

Language Grant. The purpose of this grant is to help school boards meet the costs of language instruction, including English as a second language programs and Actualisation linguistique en français/Perfectionnement du français.

Early Learning Grant: The purpose is to ensure that school boards that do not offer Junior Kindergarten have the resources to design early learning programs that meet the needs of children in their communities.

Learning Opportunities Grant. The purpose is to support a range of programs that are designed to help students who are at greater risk of poor academic achievement.

Geographic Circumstances Grant. The purpose is to help boards defray the additional costs faced by boards in rural and remote areas, boards operating small schools, or boards serving sparse student populations.

Teacher Qualifications and Experience Grant. The purpose is to match school boards’ funding to benchmark costs of teachers’ qualifications and experience.

Continuing Education and Other Programs Grant. A major purpose of this grant is to fund education for adults twenty-one and over, including adults who are taking credit courses leading to the Ontario Secondary School Diploma and non-credit second-language training in English or French. Through this grant, funding is also provided for summer school for secondary school students and instruction in international languages (formerly called heritage languages).

Transportation Grant. The purpose is to help boards pay for student transportation.

Declining Enrolment Adjustment. The purpose is to address the gap between revenue loss owing to declining enrolment and boards’ ability to reduce costs.

School Board Administration and Governance Grant. The purpose is to help boards pay for the cost of trustees, directors, and supervisory officers, and for the central administration of school boards.

FUNDING FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION

Education funding starts with the Foundation Grant, which gives every school board a basic level of funding for each student. Additional funding is provided through special purpose grants, including a Special Education Grant, based on specific costs or needs that affect some boards and some students more than others. The operation and maintenance of school buildings and the construction of new schools or additions are funded through the Pupil Accommodation Grant.

The Special Education Grant provides funding for exceptional pupils and other students who need special education programs and supports. This funding is intended to support the additional programs, services, and equipment required to meet the educational needs of these students. Special education funding is protected. Allocations granted for special education purposes must only be spent on special education programs and services, or must be placed by boards in a reserve fund for special education.

The Special Education Grant includes five components - the Special Education Per-Pupil Amount, the Special Equipment Amount, the High Needs Amount, the Special Incidence Portion, and the Facilities Amount.

Special Education Per-Pupil Amount (SEPPA) is allocated to boards on the basis of total enrolment. SEPPA recognizes the cost of providing additional assistance to the majority of students with special needs.

The High Needs Amount addresses the cost of providing the intensive staff support required by the small number of pupils with very high needs.

The Special Equipment Amount (SEA)covers the incremental cost of an individual student's equipment needs in excess of $800 in the year of purchase. The criteria and application process for SEA are outlined in the document Special Education Funding Guidelines: Special Equipment Amount (SEA) and Special Incidence Portion (SIP), 2006-2007 (PDF, 57KB).

The Special Incidence Portion (SIP) supports pupils with exceptionally high needs who require the equivalent of more than two full-time staff to address health and safety needs. Eligibility criteria for SIP are outlined in the documentSpecial Education Funding Guidelines: Special Equipment Amount (SEA) and Special Incidence Portion (SIP), 2006-2007 (PDF, 57KB).

The Facilities Amount provides funding for programs serving pupils who are receiving their education through facilities such as hospitals, children's mental health centres, psychiatric institutions, detention and correctional facilities, community living/group homes, and other social services agencies. The provision of education in these facilities is subject to an agreement between a district school board and a facility.

SPECIAL EDUCATION PER-PUPIL AMOUNT (SEPPA)

SEPPA is based on total student enrolment.

Amounts vary by age and grade level, i.e. elementary student in Junior Kindergarten to Grade 3, elementary student in Grades 4 to 8, and secondary student

Boards have flexibility in using the funding. They may use it for the following purposes:

  • self-contained/resource-withdrawal classes
  • assessment costs (educational assessments as well as psychological and other professional assessments);
  • professional and paraprofessional supports such as psychologists, therapists, speech – language pathologists, and social workers
  • support for teachers
  • educational assistants
  • the first $800 of specialized equipment costs for students with special education needs
  • the cost of producing audio/ audiovisual instructional materials and alternative formats
  • other programs, services, and equipment that are required for meeting the special educational needs of students

Special education programming for most students with special education needs is provided through SEPPA plus the Foundation Grant, both of which are based on total board enrolment.

HIGH NEEDS AMOUNT

From 1999 to 2005 there was a system of special education funding, in addition to SEPPA, called Intensive Support Amount (ISA) levels 2 and 3. ISA funding required detailed documentation of individual students’ “high needs”, although the money allocated to boards could be pooled and used for any special education purpose. There was no funding through ISA 2 and 3 that was specifically targetted to individual students, except in the very first year of the program.

There were many complaints about the ISA process, from the amount of paperwork required, to the amount of professional time allocated to assessing ISA eligibility, to the fact that there was little financial incentive to improving student achievement. In 2004 the Ministry undertook to review the special education funding formula. For 2005-06 they instituted a High Needs Amount, based on the amounts already documented for a board in the previous ISA approval cycle, and adjusted to reflect numbers of students with High Needs who had left the board or who had come into the board. There were criteria and formulae to calculate Net New Needs.

In 2004-05 the Ministry convened a Working Table on Special Education. Their report, Special Education Transformation ( was released in June 2006. It recommended a gradual shift in policy and funding to a model that focuses on improving student outcomes and specifically recommended that funds be allocated to boards based on current allocations, while studying ways of identifying high needs without a student-based claims process.

For 2006-07 the new funding approach will convert each board’s 2005-06 total High Needs Amount into a board-specific per pupil amount that is multiplied by a board’s average daily enrolment (ADE), including the enrolment of high needs students. Boards will not be required to initiate a claims process for high needs students.

Each board’s per pupil amount is calculated using the board’s 2005-06 High Needs Amount divided by their 2005-06 ADE. The resulting board-specific per pupil amount is multiplied by the board’s projected 2006-07 ADE to arrive at the board’s base 2006-07 High Needs Amount.

THE SPECIAL EQUIPMENT AMOUNT (SEA)

The Special Equipment Amount replaces the ISA 1 under the previous funding formula, but is essentially the same. This fund is designed to provide students with equipment that allows them to access the Ontario Curriculum or board-determined program and attend school.

The SEA funding, unlike SEPPA and the High Needs Amount, is student specific. Students do not have to be formally identified for special education, but a relevant qualified professional must recommend their need for the equipment. The claim must include an assessment report on file, a current copy of the student’s IEP (or behaviour management/safety plan) and proof of purchase.

The claim cycle for SEA runs from May 1st of one year to April 30th of the next. Boards are encouraged to make claims by May 1st, using an electronic summary claim form, so that they can purchase equipment prior to the school year. New claims may be submitted later in the cycle however.

Examples of eligible expenses include:

  • Speech analysers, speech synthesizers
  • FM systems
  • Amplification systems
  • Print enlargers for students with low vision
  • Computer hardware
  • Software that provides access to the curriculum, e.g. operating systems and accessibility programs, such as Kurzweil and Dragon programs)
  • Braillers
  • Symbol or letter translators
  • Various types of adapted furniture or equipment for moving students

The funding can include:

  • Warranties
  • Service contracts for technology
  • Training for students and staff on how to use SEA funded computers, software and other equipment.
  • Leasing or buying the equipment

The school board is required to pay the first $800 of the cost, and the Ministry pays the rest, upon approval of documentation.

For students who are eligible for home-use equipment through the Assistive Devices Program (ADP), under the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, cost-sharing arrangements may be made for equipment that is portable. When a family has purchased a piece of equipment for home use through ADP and it is not portable between home and school, the board may submit a claim for duplicate equipment used at school.

Students whose only exceptionality is learning disabilities are not eligible for ADP funding.

Equipment purchased thorough SEA funding may be transferred with a student from school to school or from board to board. The receiving board will be responsible for any shipping or handling costs associated with the move. Equipment cannot be taken on to postsecondary studies, however.

There is no Ministry policy about the use of SEA funded equipment by students at home.

Each board sets its own policy and some have created formal policies which allow students to use equipment such as laptops at home for school assignments, with some conditions. There are details to be worked out for insurance coverage for loss or damage of the equipment. In some cases parents are allowed to take out their own coverage. In others the parents might pay for such extended coverage under a school policy. Board policies usually require written guarantees that the equipment will be used solely for school purposes.

Use of equipment like laptops to do homework assignments is an important issue for students with special education needs, and at least one Human Rights complaint has been laid against a board of education about this issue. SEAC reps should be asking their boards to set a reasonable policy on home use of SEA funded equipment.

THE SPECIAL INCIDENCE PORTION (SIP)

The Special Incidence Portion (SIP) was set up to provide individual additional funding for students with “extraordinarily high needs” related to their disabilities. These needs have been characterized in terms of health and safety of the students themselves and others in the classroom. School boards may apply for SIP funding on behalf of students who require more than two full-time equivalent board-paid staff for the health and safety of the applicant student or other students. The total of board staff interacting with the student on a regular basis can be added up (including behavioural or teacher’s assistants, child and youth workers, special education teachers, but not classroom teachers).

Students can be in self-contained, resource withdrawal or integrated settings. There must be an IEP and documentation of the health and safety issues, such as a behaviour management plan, intervention log or inter-agency involvement. The identified additional supports must be in place at the time of the claim. Approval is through the Regional Offices of the Ministry, and may be up to a maximum of $27,000 per student per year.

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