Unions say the province is shortchanging schools by millions, leaving students and classrooms in crisis

The public and Catholic school boards have been severely underfunded by the province, leading to violence in classrooms, children being short-changed when it comes to their education, and staff burnout, unions that represent education workers say.

"It should be an election issue because it's provincial tax dollars that are funding the education system," said Mary Henry, the president of CUPE Local 4222, which represents secretaries, custodians, and early childhood educators with the Thames Valley District School Board.

"People need to start asking about where our dollars are going because it's not being provided to the area that will determine our future, and that's education."

The union that represents 12,000 workers in Ontario will release the preliminary results of a survey that points to a crisis in schools they say cannot be fixed without more funding on Wednesday.

"A severe crisis in underfunding has led to extreme understaffing, students needs going unmet, and increased violence in the Thames Valley District and London District Catholic school boards," officials with the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (CUPE-OBSCU) wrote in a statement. 

Ontario school boards are funded on a per-pupil basis, meaning they get money for each student enrolled. But while per-pupil funding has gone up, it hasn't increased on par with inflation, the unions said. 

Real per-pupil funding cut, unions say

Locally, that's meant a funding cut of $94 million to real per-pupil funding at the Thames Valley District School Board and $31 million in real per-pupil funding at the London District Catholic School Board, the group said. 

"It affects us on all levels," added Henry, whose local union is part of the umbrella group. "Our tools and resources are decreased, and that affects our ability to do our jobs. There's pressure because of the lack of resources, and it's putting a huge strain on the membership." 

The survey found that more than half of custodians and cleaners are asked to work with inadequate supplies, including running out of things or having to work with worn-out brooms and mops.

Since 2011-2012, the per-pupil funding has decreased by $1,114 per student, CUPE-OSBCU says, adding that in 2011-2012, the province spent 19 per cent of total government revenue on education, but this year, that number is 14 per cent of total government revenue. 

The survey of secretaries, maintenance workers, custodians, educational assistants, library workers and others represented by CUPE found: 

• 83 per cent said they felt stress due to excessive workload, and just over half said they took time off work due to stress and burnout. 
• 61 per cent said their work area is sometimes evacuated because of violent or disruptive behaviour, and 10 per cent said that it happened every day 
• 97 per cent of educational assistants and child and youth workers said they experienced violent or disruptive behaviour. 
• 92 per cent of registered early childhood educators said there are students in their classes with special needs, but 65 per cent said that those kids don't have an EA assigned to them. 

"I feel like students are getting the bare minimum of service. The service is often reacting to what needs to be done and not anything additional or extra," one secretary from the London District Catholic School Board told survey takers. He or she is not identified by name or school in the survey documents. 

"The needs haven't changed, but the resources have gone way down. We're stretched so thin," said Paul Nagy, an educational assistant at a public high school in London.

"In the past, we would have a lot more support for the kids, more one-on-one support, more life-skills learning. Now, students that would get that kind of support aren't getting them." 

Kids who don't get the support they need disrupt the classroom and make it more difficult to teach and learn, Nagy added. "When their individual needs aren't met, we see behaviour, we see violence, we see evacuations of classrooms, all because of chaos and over-stimulation." 

Education has to be a provincial election issue, Nagy said. "When you're trying to put out fires, learning gets put on the back burner." 

Officials with the London District Catholic School Board did not have anyone available to comment for this article. The Thames Valley District School Board sent a statement that said it is committed to a safe, inclusive and supportive environment.

When asked about the union's claims, Education Minister Jill Dunlop disputed the lack of funding and said school boards need to ensure they are using their funding for the classrooms.

"No other government has invested more in education. Since 2018, our government has increased public education funding to historic levels including on student mental health and safety, special education and supporting the hiring of over 9,000 education staff to support student achievement," she said.

"Yesterday I announced $1.3 billion in new funding to build more schools across the province including six new schools in the Thames Valley District School Board and London Catholic School Board. We have and will continue to increase funding in education every single year of our mandate to support students and teachers, but school boards need to act as responsible stewards of public dollars, balance their budgets and ensure money meant for the classroom, get to the classroom."