The Golden Horn Elementary School's council may resort to selling cookies on Main Street to maintain current staff levels.

"A bake sale is really what we're talking about," Laurie Henderson, the council's chair, said in an interview Tuesday.

"It's an idea we've discussed; we don't have anything scheduled at this point."

What are scheduled are teacher cuts for some schools, with the excess positions being dispatched to others.

During the session of the legislative assembly that ended last Thursday, Education Minister Patrick Rouble said the number of teachers in the territory would remain at current levels.

However, Liberal education critic Eric Fairclough argued that reallocating teachers adds up to cuts.

"This is simply not right," Fairclough said after Hidden Valley School had its staff slashed by one position.

"(Rouble) is distorting the picture by saying we are experiencing lower student numbers... Hidden Valley has had a 20 per cent increase in students since opening this year and for that, they take a cut."

But what is a cut and what is reallocation depends on who's doing the talking.

The number of teachers in the Yukon will remain at 474.8 full-time equivalencies (FTEs) but a total of 7.5 FTEs have been shuffled.

Grey Mountain Primary School is losing half a position, Selkirk Elementary another half-position, two have been slashed from Jack Hulland Elementary and another two from Porter Creek Secondary.

On the flip-side, Christ the King Elementary will gain an additional half-position, Elijah Smith Elementary, one, and Whitehorse Elementary, one-and-a-half.

Another .15 FTE hours will shift to Ecole Emilie-Tremblay and Dawson City's Individual Learning Centre will get .80 in additional FTE hours. Two-and-a-half positions are being held as "contingencies" for 2008.

According to Henderson, when Rouble met with the council in April, "I believe what he advised us that no positions had been cut ... in my view, he was playing word games."

The Golden Horn chair said the meeting happened in the wake of talk that the Kindergarten to Grade 7 school could expect a decrease in staffing allocations.

"I think it was somewhat dismissive to say, 'there have been no cuts'," Henderson added. "Not two weeks later, his department told us there had been."

Asked if she thought Rouble would come out to support the potential bake sale initiative to raise $100,000 - the cost of maintaining an FTE - Henderson declined comment.

But Fairclough didn't hold back.

"I wonder if the minister will buy a cookie from the Golden Horn students to support efforts to save their teacher," he said. "A better way of showing his support would be to rescind the cuts."

Enrolment at Golden Horn has dropped by approximately 15 students, while Hidden Valley has seen its student body grow by 16 students.

Both schools will have to make do with one less teaching position.

Maintaining the Yukon's teacher student ratio of less than 10 to one cost cost the government $47.4 million last year.

The estimate for 2008-2009 is $47.2 million.