“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 Hamilton-area schools

HAMILTON, 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 Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board and the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board. 

The CUPE-OSBCU survey included over 12,000 respondents from across Ontario, with close to 400 from Hamilton-area school boards. The survey points to a crisis of understaffing in all classifications, causing insufficient supports for students and staff in schools and the Hamilton 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 Hamilton-area.

CUPE locals 4153 and 3396 represent over 1500 members, including Educational Assistants, Child and Youth Workers, Registered Early Childhood Educators, secretarial staff, IT, custodial, maintenance and trades workers, student supervisors and other educational workers.  

This school year alone, Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board has faced a minimum of a $58 million cut to real per-pupil funding, Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board faced a real per-pupil cut of over $33 million. 

Many education workers at these school boards say they frequently face violent incidents at their workplace, with over 44 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 in Ontario. 

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.  

Blake Corkill, President of CUPE 4153: The provincial underfunding of schools under Premier Ford has had a drastically negative effect on the working conditions for our members. Not only are the buildings themselves facing an ever-increasing list of maintenance and repair items that go unchecked and are put off for years, but extreme understaffing directly affects staff and student safety, as well as employee morale, on a daily basis. When members are burned out or are on sick leave from being hurt on the job, there is no one to replace them, which leads to even more injuries for staff and students. We started a food bank for our members in December because our members cannot make ends meet and cannot afford to buy food for themselves and their families. We have given out thousands of dollars in food staples since it opened. This should not be necessary. There is a definite funding issue for education workers in the Ontario public education system and it absolutely must be addressed. 

Nancy Castelli, President of CUPE 3396: The work our members do has changed drastically in the last eight years. It has become very, very difficult. Designated Early Childhood Educators are now doing the work of Educational Assistants, and Educational Assistants are doing the work of Personal Support Workers. Our members are doing work that they’re simply not qualified for. And some members of CUPE 3396 are getting injured to the point where they’re affected for the rest of their lives — which is incredibly sad because these people have the biggest hearts, and they deeply care about the kids they work with. We desperately need more staff and government funding for the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board. 

Numbers at a Glance: 

• The Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board has faced a minimum of a $58 million cut to real per-pupil funding in 2024-25. The Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board has faced a minimum of a $33 million cut to real per-pupil funding in 2024-25.   
• 42 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 21.4 Full-Time Equivalent jobs worth of unpaid work are done by CUPE members.   
• 85 percent of respondents say they feel stress due to an excessive workload.  
• 76 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, 45 percent say it happens every day. 
• 76 percent of respondents say there are not enough people employed in their own job classification at the school board or in their school. 81 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