Overview

2.1 million

students

$32 billion

education funding

145,522

educators

4,861

schools

Read our parent guide to learn more about our public school system.

School boards and school authorities

School boards manage publicly funded schools. In a few cases, school authorities manage schools.

School boards

A school board oversees all the schools within its jurisdiction.

Ontario has 72 district school boards, organized into 4 school systems:

  • English Public
  • English Catholic
  • French Public
  • French Catholic

Number of school boards in each system

31

English public school boards

29

English Catholic school boards

4

French public school boards

8

French Catholic school boards

Find your local school board.

School authorities

School authorities are alternatives to district school boards.

There are 10 school authorities:

  • 6 serve students in school authorities in children’s treatment centres
  • 4 serve students who live in remote areas of Ontario or in a minority separate school system

Find your local school authority.

Provincial and demonstration schools

There are provincial schools and demonstration schools for students who:

  • are deaf or hard of hearing
  • are blind or have low vision
  • are deafblind
  • have severe learning disabilities

Schools

There were 4,861 publicly funded schools for students from kindergarten to Grade 12 in the 2024–2025 school year.

Number of elementary and secondary schools

3,976

elementary schools serving
1,425,389 students

885

secondary schools serving
669,804 students

Note: Remote learning schools are not included in these school counts.

Elementary schools teach kindergarten to Grade 8. A school may have:

  • kindergarten to Grade 5 or 6
  • Grade 6 to 8 or Grade 7 and 8 (sometimes called “middle school”)
  • kindergarten to Grade 8

Secondary schools teach Grades 9 to 12.

Education funding

$29.3 billion

for operating costs

$2.7 billion

for capital projects

We fund school boards that then fund their schools and school systems for:

  • day-to-day operations including:
    • staffing
    • classroom supplies
    • programs and services
    • transportation
    • school operations (for example, utility costs)
  • construction and improvement of school buildings

Learn more about education funding and how it supports student achievement and well-being.

Teachers, administrators and early childhood educators

Here are the full time equivalent (FTE) school staff totals for the 2024–2025 school year.

128,430

teacher FTEs

85,082 elementary

43,348 secondary

7,714

principal and vice principal FTEs

5,660 elementary

2,054 secondary

9,378

early childhood educator FTEs

There were:

  • 7,714.15 FTE administrators (principals and vice-principals), consisting of 5,660.07 elementary and 2,054.08 secondary administrators
  • 9,377.73 FTE early childhood educators (ECEs), including long-term occasional ECEs

Student enrolment

Student enrolment was 2,095,193 as of the 2024–2025 school year.

Elementary enrolment

The following table shows elementary student enrolment by grade and language.

GradeEnglish LanguageFrench LanguageTotal
Junior Kindergarten112,3048,029120,333
Kindergarten123,6188,276131,894
Grade 1130,0468,634138,680
Grade 2133,4858,737142,222
Grade 3136,5798,869145,448
Grade 4137,8088,881146,689
Grade 5139,7088,908148,616
Grade 6140,3088,678148,986
Grade 7143,2428,301151,543
Grade 8142,8108,168150,978
Total1,339,90885,4811,425,389

Secondary enrolment

The following table shows secondary student enrolment by grade and language.

GradeEnglish LanguageFrench LanguageTotal
Grade 9148,6887,434156,122
Grade 10151,7367,140158,876
Grade 11153,2797,072160,351
Grade 12186,7947,661194,455
Total640,49729,307669,804

This data is based on student headcount and is reported to us by schools through the Ontario School Information System. It includes public schools, Catholic schools and adult schools within school boards and school authorities. It excludes:

  • private schools
  • publicly funded provincial schools
  • school authorities in children's treatment centres
  • Education and Community Partnership Program facilities
  • summer, night and adult continuing education schools

Explore more data

Download data from 2017–2018 and onwards from the Open Data Catalogue.