YORK REGION, ON – CUPE 1734 and the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU) strongly condemn the York Region District School Board’s (YRDSB) announcement to move ahead with significant staffing cuts despite a crisis in understaffing and growing student needs across the board.
The board recently notified the local that it plans to cut up to 249 education positions, including over 201 Educational Assistants, 36 secretarial and administrative staff, six information technology workers, and six library technicians.
CUPE 1734 has also been told another 135 members may be displaced from their current schools, although the employer has still not provided consistent or transparent information confirming those numbers.
What is most alarming is the impact these decisions will have on some of the most vulnerable students in YRDSB schools. These cuts will have a devastating impact on YRDSB students, families, staff and school communities.
The school board is actively displacing senior, highly experienced frontline education workers from specialized programs. Instead of respecting long-standing seniority principles and the value of frontline experience, workers who have spent years building relationships, stability, and trust with vulnerable students are being pushed out.
“At one school with three specialized classrooms for students with exceptionalities, we’ve been told at least six of nine Educational Assistants are either being laid off or redeployed, while two classroom teachers in those same programs have been displaced from the classroom,” said Michelle Campbell, President of CUPE 1734. “These students depend on consistency, trust, familiar adults, and staff who understand their communication, behavioural, and medical needs. Stripping those supports away will have devastating consequences.”
Members of CUPE 1734 are feeling hurt and devastated by what is happening to them and the students they support. Many workers received life-changing letters with little clarity, little transparency, and no meaningful acknowledgment of the human impact of these decisions.
“This is not just a staffing issue,” Campbell said. “This is a student safety issue, a human rights issue, and a public education issue. Every number on these lists represents a real worker supporting real students, and every single cut will be felt inside our schools. Our schools are already critically understaffed. Instead of investing in the supports students clearly need, the school board is threatening to cut education workers who provide direct care, intervention, emotional support, and stability in schools every single day.”
In April, CUPE 1196, representing caretakers and skilled trades workers at YRDSB, was told the school board plans to cut up to 78 of their members by the end of this school year.
The OSBCU says these cuts are a direct result of the Ford government’s chronic underfunding of public education, amounting to more than $6 billion since 2018.
“What we’re seeing at YRDSB is part of a broader pattern, where education workers are being asked to pay the price for underfunding,” said Joe Tigani, President of the OSBCU. “These are the people who support students with special needs, maintain safe schools, and ensure schools function every day. Cutting these workers hurts everyone.”
CUPE 1734 and the OSBCU are calling on the province to properly fund education and on the York Region District School Board to immediately reverse these job cuts.
“Students deserve safe, supported learning environments,” Tigani said. “That starts with investing in the workers who make that possible. The OSBCU stands behind CUPE 1734 members as they fight back. We are united in defending good jobs, protecting vital services, and pushing back against a system that continues to undervalue education workers and the students they serve.”
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For more information, please contact:
Shannon Carranco
CUPE Communications
[email protected] 514-703-8358
