‘We do everything’: Windsor-Essex educators call for more funding for schools

A rally outside of a Windsor MPP's office saw teachers and students alike demanding more education funding from the province.

Education workers in Windsor-Essex took to the streets on Wednesday to rally for increased funding in the sector, aiming to avoid further strain on students and teachers.

Outside the office of Andrew Dowie, the MPP for Windsor–Tecumseh, more than 80 people from various unions representing workers in the school system waved flags and led chants.

Mario Spagnuolo, local president for the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, said educators bear the brunt of “continued cutbacks” to the system.

“Teachers and education workers are fed up with doing more with less, and having a government that doesn’t support students, specifically our students with special needs,” Spagnuolo said.

The protest aligned with similar showings across Ontario as part of a provincewide day of action.

Job cuts

In some cases, a directive by the province to rein in spending and cut deficits has led to the elimination of jobs.

Anthony Cutrone, President of CUPE Local 4299, representing 850 full-time and part-time staff members at the CSC Providence School Board, said cuts are affecting his members.

According to Cutrone, a decision was made on Monday to eliminate 40 positions within their union.

“We’re telling the Ford government, listen, there’s a shortfall in the funding that we all know, but we also have a problem with the administration of that funding,” Cutrone told CTV News.

Cuts hit a “gamut of positions,” he said, affecting library techs, IT workers, secretaries, ECEs and more.

“Without us, honestly, it just doesn’t work. We can’t open that door to make sure that the kids are safe, that the place is clean. The IT department [makes sure] that the infrastructure’s working. We do everything.”

Student impact

Changes to staffing will have an impact across the school board, the union rep added.

For Avery Dagenais, a Grade 12 student at École secondaire catholique E.J. Lajeunesse, the moves are “unfair.”

“We should be cutting other things, not the people who are building us and building our schools and building our communities, because the future generation matters just as much as we do right now,” she told CTV News.

Without good staff, Dagenais worries that future students will feel less inclined to go to school and attend their classes.

A soon-to-be graduate, she plans to write to Dowie to voice her frustrations with the decisions that have led to job losses.

“The people that are here have really built us to be the people we are and seniority doesn’t equal quality,” Dagenais added.

CTV News has reached out to Dowie for comment on the rally outside his office.

Spagnuolo told CTV News he has a meeting scheduled with the MPP in the coming weeks.

“So, the burden falls on everybody, but ultimately, it’s the students that are shortchanged on a proper education because we have good schools in Ontario. What we want to do is make them better,” Spagnuolo said.