Student-to-staff ratios for education workers have worsened at all 72 of Ontario’s school boards since the Ford government took office, according to a new report from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU). In the report published on Monday, CUPE and OSBCU compared education worker staffing levels during the 2025-26 school year with 2018-19, the first full school year of Premier Doug Ford’s government. At 60 school boards, the union says staffing ratios worsened among four or more education worker classifications. Twelve boards were hit with 10 or more. That means, according to the union, that there are more students going without supports and heavier workloads for staff. Dan Crow, CUPE’s researcher for the report, said the average number of classifications with worsening student-to-staff ratios is 6.7 per school board. “For the purposes of this report, we used 17 education worker classifications from school board financial documents. Each classification had a worse ratio for anywhere from 4 to 56 boards (depending on the classification),” Crow wrote in an email to CTV News Toronto. “Students are paying the price for a government that keeps announcing ‘historic investments’ while schools struggle to provide the support children need,” OSBCU President Joe Tigani said in a news release. “Education workers cannot make up for missing staff by working harder, skipping breaks or doing unpaid work. The government’s own data shows that staffing is falling behind.” The report draws on a union survey conducted in 2025, where more than 12,000 education workers responded. The majority of respondents (92.3 per cent) said more staff are needed in schools. Among educational assistants (EAs) surveyed, nearly 73 per cent said they support five or more students in a typical week, up from 60 per cent in 2018. Only three per cent provide one-on-one support, down from 7.4 per cent. The report also says more kindergarten classes are running without a designated early childhood educator (DECE). In 2025-26, there were 1,559 kindergarten classes that had no DECE, affecting about 19,240 students. In 2018-19, it was 1,168 classes and 13,983 students. Kindergarten split classes also increased from 436 to 567 during that time, or from four per cent to 5.4 per cent of classes with kindergarten students. There are 642 fewer full-time-equivalent DECEs than in 2018-19, and the union says the student-to-DECE ratio worsened even though kindergarten enrolment fell. The report also looked at the impacts of non-educational staff employed at school boards across the province. Among custodians surveyed, 70 per cent said they are sometimes unable to finish their daily duties, and 41 per cent said parts of their school aren’t cleaned every day. Ninety-five per cent of school office staff surveyed said they can’t get all their assigned work done in a day, pointing to factors like staffing shortages and having to regularly address distractions. Seventy-five per cent of Ontario’s school boards also saw a cut in the number of full-time positions for professional staff, which include psychologists and social workers, among others. The union argues provincial funding hasn’t kept pace with inflation and enrolment growth, saying this gap has existed as far back at the 2012-13 school year. The report points to the Auditor General’s finding that most boards spent hundreds of millions of dollars more on special education than they received from the province. Formal special education enrolment is up two per cent province-wide since 2017-18, including a 51 per cent increase in students with autism, the report says. But fewer elementary students were formally enrolled in 2024-25 than in 2018-19, which the report links to long assessment waits and too few staff to assess students and provide supports. Without assessments, the union argues, students go without the specific supports they need. Strike votes in Ontario The vote for OSBCU members started Nov. 4, with the final date for voting taking place Nov. 18. The OSBCU represents more than 57,000 CUPE education workers across the province. Staffing is a centrepiece of CUPE-OSBCU’s proposals in the round of central bargaining with the province, as the union points to the hundreds of job cuts that were laid down prior to the 2026-27 school year. “Boards across the province are cutting staff at a time when more staff are needed. This puts additional pressure on education workers who remain, who have to pick up more work, adding stress and strain to themselves,” the report reads. “It also means student needs continue to go unmet, and in fact, an increasing number of students will go without their needs being met.” Among their bargaining proposals, the union says there should be funding dedicated to hiring new staff and that there is a DECE and educational assistant present in every kindergarten class. The union also calls for a hard cap of 26 students on classes with kindergarten students. The report comes as teachers’ unions hold strike votes across the province. The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario are voting Nov. 9 to 18, and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation began voting Nov. 6 and finish Nov. 16. Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association members vote Nov. 12 and 13, and the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens vote Nov. 16 and 17. We want to hear from you Families with children attending elementary and secondary schools, we want to hear from you. What changes have you noticed in the 2026-27 school year that you feel has impacted your child’s learning? Share your story by emailing us at torontonews@bellmedia.ca with your name, general location and phone number in case we want to follow up. Your comments may be used in a future story.
