REGINA – Members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees were at the Legislature Tuesday raising alarm bells about the state of education funding.
The rally, which included education support workers and teaching assistants from 15 Saskatchewan school divisions, coincided with the release by CUPE’s Education Workers Steering Committee of an online survey. The survey was of 750 Saskatchewan residents in 20 different school divisions.
Those respondents pointed to what the union described in a news release as a “dire situation facing staff and students in the K-12 education system.”
According to the major findings, 98 per cent said their school division has been impacted by cuts the last two years; 86 per cent said one on one supports have been cut or reduced the previous two years; 68 per cent of support staff reported having to do more work with less resources; cuts were also noted to library services, speech pathologists and counselling services; and almost a third said maintenance of physical buildings had been reduced or cut the past two years.
“The results are alarming,” said Shandel McLeod, vice-chair with CUPE Education Workers Steering Committee, at the rally.
“The survey exposed serious gaps that education workers are trying to fill while already stretched to the limit. Chronic underfunding and education cuts have left schools struggling to provide basic supports. We’re talking classrooms without enough staff, students missing resources, and school divisions forced to make impossible choices every day.”
“ I’ve got a lot of feelings, but it start with sadness. I feel very sad, reading this report — sad for the students and for the parents and the needless stress that they’re facing,” said Opposition Leader Carla Beck, who joined the rally along with several of her MLAs.
“I feel sad for the workers — those who are being thrust day in and day out into impossible situations…
“And then let’s talk about anger because I got a lot of anger about this too. To watch time and time again the government stand up and spin some lines about the ‘biggest ever investment of education.’ This survey again puts truth to those lies. Tell us that things have never been better in education, well, you’ve got 98 per cent of people in this survey who knew damn well that that’s not the case.”
Speaking to reporters following Question Period about the survey and the rally, Education Minister Everett Hindley said he was “thankful to the members for being here at the Legislature” and said he had a chance to meet with themt to discuss some of the concerns on behalf of other CUPE members, who “basically represent pretty much everyone outside of a teacher in our education system.”
Hindley said they as a government “do take it very seriously when it comes to making sure that we are continuing to invest into our education system, and that includes in particular the past couple of years increases operating funding for schools and school divisions right across the province.”
He also pointed to increased classroom supports, pointing to signing a multiyear agreement last year for guaranteed funding for classroom supports. There was also a 10-11 per cent increase in classroom support funding in this year’s budget, he said, which goes to positions such as EAS and other support staff.
“One of the things I do hear as part of a growing province and a growing education system is there is added pressure in our classrooms when it comes to growing enrolments but also complexity. That is why you see our government investing into more EAs, into more specialized support classrooms to help address some of these pressures, more classroom complexity teachers, the additional teachers that were part of the collective bargaining agreement as well. So is there work to do? Certainly there is, but I think we made some significant strides in the past number of years.”
