TORONTO -- The Toronto District School Board is advising parents that some changes could be coming to their children’s elementary school classrooms as the board reassigns hundreds of teachers to virtual teaching and reorganizes classes accordingly.

In a memo sent out to parents Tuesday night, the board said that while it typically makes adjustments to classrooms a couple of weeks into the school year, those adjustments will be on a larger scale and more complicated because of the considerable changes to learning this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“While this is a routine process that happens every school year, the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the creation of the virtual school has resulted in a need for more significant class adjustments and the distribution of teachers between in-person schools and the virtual school,” the TDSB said in the memo.

The changes could include a switch in teachers, reorganization of classes to meet size requirements, more split grade classes, and reassigning some students to different classes.

TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird said approximately 570 teachers will be switching from in-person to virtual classes.

“While this does happen every year it's unlike any other year that we've seen,” Bird told CP24 in an interview.

Permanent teachers will replace approximately 25 per cent of occasional or temporary teachers in the virtual school.

The board said that it is working with Toronto Public Health to ensure that any cohort changes are safe.

The reorganization follows a recent opportunity for parents to switch their children between virtual and in-person learning. When the change window closed last Tuesday, 7,500 students had registered to switch to virtual learning, while about 3,000 requested a switch to in-person learning.

That means about 4,500 students will be moving to the virtual learning option while the board struggles to supply enough teachers for remote learning.

Hundreds of students who are learning virtually still don’t have a teacher. TDSB staff said Monday that 35 virtual classes are still without teachers.

The board has been scrambling to fix the problem by raising class caps, combining grades into single classes, assigning English-speaking teachers to French immersion classes and recruiting teachers from outside of Ontario.

At the same time, staff said that some brick and mortar schools are currently significantly overstaffed.

“We cannot afford, nor is it doing anyone good to have smaller class sizes, while other students don't have a class at all, in the virtual school,” Bird told CP24. “So that's why we've had to adjust the number of staff in our in-person schools to beef up the virtual school so that we can support all of our students right now.”

In the memo to parents Tuesday, the TDSB said that 324 physical schools will lose at least one teacher in the re-organization while 136 schools will see no change and 12 schools will gain 1 to 2 teachers.

The board said parents will be contacted by their child’s school later this week if their child’s classroom will be impacted by the re-organization.

The board said that despite the changes, it is maintaining its commitment to keep in-person class sizes smaller, especially in neighbourhoods that have been most highly impacted by COVID-19.

Acknowledging that “this year is like no other” the board asked parents to be understanding of the coming changes.

“Balancing the teacher-pupil ratio is absolutely necessary to ensure more equitable access to learning opportunities for all students. The TDSB is making every effort to better balance our schools with as little disruption to your child’s learning as possible,” the memo read.

Parents will have another opportunity later this month to switch their child between remote and in-person learning. That change will take effect in November.