PETERBOROUGH, ON – At a press conference this morning CUPE locals representing more than 3200 education workers in the Peterborough area called on the Ford government to immediately increase funding for school boards and remedy the crisis in understaffing, sky rocketing violence, and lack of student supports.
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 the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the 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 in the the Kawartha Pine Ridge, Peterborough Victoria Northumberland Clarington Catholic and Trillium Lakelands district school boards.
Read the full CUPE-OSBCU Services Survey report for the Peterborough-area.
The CUPE-OSBCU survey included over 12,000 respondents from across Ontario, with close to 1200 from the Kawartha Pine Ridge, Peterborough Victoria Northumberland Clarington Catholic and Trillium Lakelands district school boards.
This school year alone, the Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB has faced a minimum of a $40 million cut by the Conservative government to real per-pupil funding, the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland Clarington Catholic DSB has faced a real per-pupil cut of $16 million, and Trillium Lakelands DSB has lost over $19 million.
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.
CUPE education workers across the province are calling on the Ford government to 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.
The OSBCU represents more than 57,000 education workers across the province.
Quotes:
Joe Tigani, President of OSBCU: 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. 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.
Nora Shaughnessy, President of CUPE 1453: CUPE 1453 represents over 700 members across the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board. Our members deal with extreme understaffing, underfunding, a dire need for more supports for students and staff, and violent incidents every day. Members are exhausted and burned out. They are frequently taking on two or three of their coworkers’ jobs at once without getting paid for it. We can’t allow this to happen any longer. We need more funding, and we need more staffing and support. Right now, the board wants to spend thousands of dollars on changing their name, while our workers are afraid to take a day off when they’ve been injured on the job because they know that no one will replace them, and the students will suffer. It’s astounding.
Bill Campbell, President of CUPE 997: CUPE 997 represents close to 800 CUPE education workers in the Trillium Lakelands District School Board. There is an enormous understaffing issue in our school board. Our schools are not being cleaned properly because there are nowhere near enough custodians to keep up with the mounting workload. If there are two custodians in a school, and one custodian goes on vacation, the other is often left with twice the workload to finish in their eight-hour shift, which is completely impossible and can create a dangerous environment for staff and students. The end result is that schools are not as clean as they were or should be. The board told us last spring that only 50 percent of Educational Assistants are replaced when they’re away. Our board also boasted an $8 million surplus in the fall. Yes, it’s true that we need more funding from the Ford government, but we also need Trillium Lakelands DSB to recognize that our schools are in crisis.
Laurie Lucciola, Custodian and member of CUPE 5555: I’ve worked at the Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB for 24 years, both as an Educational Assistant and now as a custodian. We are constantly short staffed in all classifications. We are overburdened with work and jobs go delayed or just don’t get done at all because we don’t have enough staff on the floor. We do the best we can do with the supports that are available to us, but the government has got to provide more funding to create a safe and inclusive environment for Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB students and staff. How do we expect our students to learn when they’re not given the supports they need? It’s just not possible.
Numbers at a Glance:
- Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board has faced a minimum of a $40.93 million cut to real per-pupil funding in 2024-25. Peterborough Victoria Northumberland Clarington Catholic District School Board has faced a cut of at least $16.65 million. Trillium Lakelands District School Board has faced a real per-pupil cut of $19.42 million.
- 61 percent of members say they do unpaid work for the school board, effectively subsidizing schools to make up for the lack of funding. Extrapolating the amount of unpaid work reported to the entire membership of these locals, an equivalent of 78.7 Full-Time Equivalent jobs worth of unpaid work are done by CUPE members.
- 91 percent of respondents say they feel stress due to an excessive workload.
- 83 percent of all respondents say they experience violent or disruptive incidents in their work area. 98 percent of Educational Assistants or Child and Youth Workers experience violent or disruptive incidents in their workplace.
- 85 percent of respondents say there are not enough people employed in their own job classification at the school board or in their school. 89 percent of respondents said that services for students, staff, or the school community would be improved with more staff in their classification.
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For more information, contact:
Shannon Carranco
CUPE Communications
[email protected]
514-703-8358
lg/cope491
