{"id":530148,"date":"2026-03-11T23:28:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/530148\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T23:28:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:28:17","slug":"ontario-elementary-school-teachers-getting-750-spending-accounts-for-supplies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/530148\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario elementary school teachers getting $750 spending accounts for supplies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ford government<\/a> says it will give elementary school teachers access to $750 per year in classroom supplies, which they\u2019ll be able to order directly from a new provincial website.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Beginning in September, teachers will be able to use the money to buy writing supplies, calculators, chalk, art, crafts and tissue, among other classroom supplies.<\/p>\n

The government said it will offer direct support to teachers, who, Premier Doug Ford and Education Minister Paul Calandra both say, have been forced until now to spend their own money on supplies from dollar stores.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was a Dollarama and I met a couple of educators,\u201d Ford recalled. \u201cThey\u2019re picking up supplies, and they\u2019re paying out of their pocket. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later, same scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new system is designed to leverage the provincial government\u2019s purchasing power through a centralized system. The government hopes mass ordering managed by Supply Ontario will lead to savings.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of teachers say the platform that they go to now to buy supplies is far more expensive than if they were just to go to Walmart or Dollarama to buy that,\u201d Calandra explained.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n

Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you’ll never miss the day’s top stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are going to do is bring the purchasing power of the entire province of Ontario together, offer more, offer it at a lot less cost and let teachers go online for themselves to buy what they need for their classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the funds would be in addition to the money boards currently receive. The policy is estimated to cost the government around $66 million per year.<\/p>\n

The response from education unions representing teachers was skeptical, with the Elementary Teachers\u2019 Federation of Ontario suggesting the move could be designed to \u201cbuy\u201d its members ahead of new contract talks.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, educators have spent hundreds of dollars of their own money to ensure students have what they need. If the government is finally acknowledging this reality, it\u2019s long overdue,\u201d union president David Mastin said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore on Education
\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real issue that needs addressing is this government\u2019s ongoing refusal to address the chronic underfunding that forces educators to subsidize classrooms out of their own pockets in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martha Hradowy, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers\u2019 Federation, was equally lukewarm in her reception.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like handing a firefighter a cheque and telling them to buy a hose before they show up to put out a fire,\u201d she wrote in a statement. \u201cThe real solution is properly funding schools, so the resources students and educators need are already there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government said the new website will offer supplies for elementary teachers grade-by-grade, which will then be delivered directly to schools.<\/p>\n

Calandra said he would consult with teachers to work out what supplies are needed to stock on the website.<\/p>\n

He confirmed the current policy, which only targets elementary school teachers, was a \u201cstart\u201d and he would be open to expanding it to secondary school teachers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ford government says it will give elementary school teachers access to $750 per year in classroom supplies,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,549,13403,44,44643,13404,714],"class_list":["post-530148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-education","tag-ford-government","tag-news","tag-ontario-education","tag-ontario-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}