A recent survey of Ontario education workers including Educational Assistants, Early Childhood Educators, Child and Youth workers, custodians, maintenance and trades workers, and school secretaries represented by CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions, OSBCU, shows that a severe crisis in underfunding has led to extreme understaffing, students needs going unmet, and increased violence.
The CUPE-OSBCU survey included over 12,000 respondents from across Ontario. The survey points to a crisis of understaffing in all classifications, causing insufficient supports for students and staff. School offices are overburdened by increasing demands, school cleaning suffers, and repairs are delayed or go undone.
“It is abundantly clear that the education system in Ontario is at a breaking point. For years, the Conservative government has continued to cut billions of dollars in funding to the education sector, causing extreme understaffing, increased violence against staff and students, and our students’ needs being neglected, said Joe Tigani, president of the OSBCU. “There is no question that the Ford government has abandoned the education sector. The Ontario government must increase its investment in students and education workers and address this situation immediately. Students deserve better, parents deserve better, and our education workers deserve better.”
Many education workers say they frequently face violent incidents at their workplace, with almost 60 percent of Educational Assistants and Child and Youth Workers experiencing a violent incident every day.
This severe underfunding leaves students and workers at risk because there are too few staff in schools. It also means students have their learning environments disrupted on a regular basis, creating an environment that is far from conducive to having the highest quality of education.
The survey revealed that, 91% of Educational Assistants or Child and Youth Workers said they work with students who need one-on-one supports but who are not provided them. 77% of all respondents say they experience violent or disruptive incidents in their work area. 98% of Educational Assistants or Child and Youth Workers experience violent or disruptive incidents in their workplace, 59 percent say it happens every day.
CUPE education workers across the province are calling on the Ford government to immediately increase school board funding, adequately staff school boards so that education workers can do their jobs with dignity and respect, and address the crisis of violence across Ontario school boards.