“Ontario’s school boards are in severe crisis”: Survey of 12,000 CUPE education workers finds extreme underfunding and understaffing has caused widespread violence, burnout and lack of supports for students in Waterloo-area schools

WATERLOO, ON –(COMMUNITYWIRE)– 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 Waterloo Catholic District School Board.

The CUPE-OSBCU survey included over 12,000 respondents from across Ontario, with close to 800 from the Waterloo Catholic District School Board. The survey points to a crisis of understaffing in all classifications, causing insufficient supports for students and staff in schools and the Waterloo community. School offices are overburdened by increasing demands, school cleaning suffers, and repairs are delayed or go undone.

Read the full CUPE-OSBCU Services Survey report for the Waterloo area.

CUPE 2512 represents over 1000 members including Educational Assistants, Child and Youth Workers, Registered Early Childhood Educators, secretarial staff, IT, student supervisors and other educational workers.

This school year alone, Waterloo Catholic District School Board has faced a minimum of $30 million cut by the Conservative government to real per-pupil funding. Many education workers at the school board say they frequently face violent incidents at their workplace, with over 51 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.

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.

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 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.

Mechelle O’Hagan, President of CUPE 2512: CUPE 2512 members cannot continue to work under these conditions. The severe understaffing within the Waterloo District Catholic School Board has reached a point where our members are unable to provide the necessary support for our students, who are increasingly falling through the cracks. When schools are understaffed, staff are compelled to take on additional responsibilities, leading to burnout, heightened stress, and ultimately a lack of adequate support for the students who need it most. This cycle is unsustainable and must be addressed immediately.

Numbers at a Glance:

• The Waterloo Catholic District School Board has faced a minimum of a $30 million cut to real per-pupil funding in 2024-25. 
• 56 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 the local, an equivalent of 22.8 Full-Time Equivalent jobs worth of unpaid work are done by CUPE members.
• 81 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. 96 percent Educational Assistants or Child and Youth Workers experience violent or disruptive incidents in their workplace, 51 percent say it happens every day.
• 70 percent of respondents say there are not enough people employed in their own job classification at the school board or in their school. 82 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
scarranco@cupe.ca 
514-703-8358