With World Teachers’ Day approaching, presidents from teaching affiliates on both sides of the border are highlighting an urgent need for more funding in education. They are calling on parents and guardians to start raising their voices. “We need parents to speak up,” said Mario Spagnuolo, a teacher and president of the Greater Essex County Teacher Local. He and others are sounding the alarm on what they feel is underfunding in education. The concern, despite appeals from educators and school boards, is provincial funding has not kept pace with inflation or growing student needs. The consequences, Spagnuolo said, are overcrowded classrooms, reduced supports, deteriorating infrastructure, and increased violence in the classroom He recounted one classroom having to be evacuated three times already this year for safety reasons. “We have seen the Ford government change their tune when the public riles up and says that’s enough and we’ve seen them change policy drastically because of that,” he said. Friday, presidents from local teaching affiliates gathered to share the concern of chronic underfunding. They said public education must be funded as a priority, not a cost. The funding in education is not unique to Ontario according to Lakia Wilson-Lumpkins, the president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, who said she has seen this script play out before. Wilson-Lumpkins has been in the education field for 28 years and said the threat of charter schools was never a concern until after seeing the Detroit system fall from 300 schools. “What happened to us was very slow, very deliberate, and over the years we lost over 100 schools, which meant we lost many of our teachers and many of our students,” she said. Windsor West MPP Lisa Gretzky said Doug Ford’s Bill 33, Supporting Children and Students Act, would be another step in moving towards a public system. “That includes with democratically elected trustees that are elected locally to represent the voice of the parents and the folks that work in the education system,” said Gretzky. Gretzky feels taking trustees away would have a negative impact. “They’re going to say well that’s what’s wrong with the system and so we’re going to do this system instead,” Gretzky said. Spagnuolo is calling on parents to call local MPs and MPPs and voice their concerns. “The government funding is the only source of funding that school boards get,” he said. “There’s no other way of getting funding so if the funding dries out, there’s not much more we can do other than cut.” CTV reached out to the Ministry of Education and the Ontario School Board Association for comment but has not heard back as of news time.
