What to know
- Ontario will provide elementary teachers with $750 annually for classroom supplies through a new ordering system
- A Durham Region kindergarten teacher says she has spent $2,000–$3,000 of her own money on classroom materials
- While the funding is welcomed, teachers say larger class sizes, understaffing and lack of EA support remain major issues
- Educators continue to rely on fundraising and community support, and say broader changes are still needed
As the provincial government gears up to launch a classroom supply fund for elementary school teachers, one teacher says more support is still needed to help educators get through the school year.
As part of its 2026 budget, the provincial government says it will provide elementary school teachers with $750 in funding each year for classroom supplies.
The government says this will be delivered through a new provincial website, allowing teachers to order materials directly and have them shipped to their schools.
The province says the website will offer a grade-by-grade selection of commonly used classroom items, including writing supplies, notebooks, calculators, chalk, arts and crafts materials, tissues and paper towels.
Melanie Hwang, a Kindergarten teacher in Durham Region, says supplying a classroom is often done out of a teacher’s own pockets, which can make educating difficult as costs continue to increase.
“I’ve probably spent close to $2,000 to $3,000 of my own money,” Hwang said in an interview with Now Toronto.
While Hwang welcomes the government’s recent announcement, she says teachers are still grappling with understaffing and increased capped class sizes.
“Our class sizes are upwards of like 30 to 35 kids in a room. Any teacher will tell you that that is insane, anything above 25 kids is just not conducive to a learning environment,” she says.
She says the Ford government urgently needs to address these concerns.
“When you’ve been cutting, when you’ve been increasing class sizes, cutting funding, cutting our EA support, where teachers are getting violently assaulted without any support, a $750 credit just seems a little disingenuous,” she said.
Despite welcoming the classroom fund, Hwang says teachers are still struggling to find the means to fund both their classes and student life, often having to rely on each other and the community.
“We’ve relied a lot on fundraising, but unfortunately, that also puts a lot of pressure on our community and parents to kind of, you know, send us what they can,” she said.
“Student council is fundraising for their grad trip. Like, everything has to be like, fundraise for something, because nobody has the budget to to afford all this stuff, so we’re making it work,” she said.
Hwang says that until the broader issues raised by teachers are properly addressed by upper levels of government, she remains cautious despite the new funding announcement.
“Everything else that we’ve been asking for, like, the smaller class sizes, more EA support, the support in the rooms, [those] actually make a difference and make a difference for kids to learn,” she said.
