Voices of Change: Educational Assistants on the Frontlines of Ontario’s Education System

Voices of Change: Educational Assistants on the Frontlines of Ontario’s Education System

Teachers and education workers are pillars of our society. They mould the minds of our youth and guide them to academic success and a thriving life outside of school walls. As students, the lessons learned in the classroom become the framework for viewing the world. As teachers and education workers, creating a strong learning environment for students is a process of inspiring and becoming inspired.

“I didn’t even know this job existed,” said Fran, an Educational Assistant in Ontario. “When my daughter started school with a nut allergy, I volunteered to supervise at the school during lunchtime. There, I experienced a classroom like no other: one teacher, seven support staff, and 21 students. I fell in love with working alongside students, teaching life skills, and assisting them in exploring life from their perspective, on their terms, and in their time. That’s what it was; it was time spent learning, exploring, and having fun.”

The face of education in Ontario is changing, and not for

the better. While teachers and education workers are doing their best to mitigate the challenges of funding cuts, their position at the head of the classroom can make them a target—adding even further challenges to an already complex situation.

The Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation (OSSTF), founded in 1919, has over 60,000 members across Ontario at all levels of public education. Its goal is to protect and enhance public education, a process that begins with the teaching and support staff it represents.

This year, OSSTF conducted a survey to assess how the school environment in Ontario has been changing—and their findings show that an overwhelming majority of OSSTF members report that ‘there are more incidents of violence’ since they began working in Ontario schools. Worse, one in three members report having personally had physical force used against them.

Every instance of violence is evidence of how funding cuts to education are detrimental to our communities—educational workers do not have safe environments to support student learning.

"The challenge is the lack of time," Fran explained. "Underfunding education has brought us to a staffing shortage and crisis. It has removed time spent with the students, so the positive support needed for these special people isn’t available.

“Support staff are miracle workers; I fully believe that, but even miracle workers have limitations. When I first started my career in 2001, having a violent student was rare. Those students usually went to specialized programs for treatment and then were returned with a mentor to help train the staff working with that student. Currently, the wait list is so long that the number of available spaces is limited to the most violent, so my peers and my fellow staff experience violence every day. We need the early intervention programs, the Applied Behaviour Analysis programs, and the sensory programs funded so that our kids are supported and not sent out into a world with such high expectations that they are way over their abilities.”

The long-term solution is to get funding back into schools, centres, and programs that stopped receiving it. Acknowledging that this change will start at the government level, the OSSTF has laid out key initiatives to solve this problem:

1 Emergency Safe School Funding: Allocate $1.39 billion to establish an Emergency Safe School Fund for hiring qualified staff.

2 Stay and Learn Program: Introduce tuition waivers to attract students to education programs for critical roles.

3 Data Transparency: Release reports on student incidents and workplace violence inspections.

4 Safe School Action Plan: Develop a plan with a collaborative action table involving OSSTF and other unions.

“When did education funding get passed over for highway repairs or tax breaks? We are doing more with less, breaking the system and our students,” said Fran. “Locally, we need school-parent councils to rally the parents to fight against cuts to education, to go to the polls educated about the funding cuts, and to speak up for the children.”

Learn more and make your voice heard at saferschools.ca