Catholic schools facing ‘extreme crisis’ due to underfunding: Survey
Posted Feb 6, 2025 02:57:18 PM.
Last Updated Feb 6, 2025 02:57:22 PM.
A new survey from the union representing education workers across the province shows a lack of funding is causing “widespread violence, burnout and lack of support” in Catholic Schools.
The survey, conducted by the Canadian Union of Public Employee (CUPE) and the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU) included more than 12,000 respondents from across the province and 800 respondents from the Waterloo Catholic District School Board. It included workers covered by the union, including early childhood educators, child and youth workers educational assistants, school secretaries as well as custodians, maintenance and trade workers.
“The survey points to a crisis of understaffing in all classifications, causing insufficient supports for students and staff in schools and the Waterloo community,” said a press release from CUPE. “School offices are overburdened by increasing demands, school cleaning suffers, and repairs are delayed or go undone.”
Mechelle O’Hagen, the president of CUPE 2512, echoed that statement saying workers are reporting that staffing is not adequate.
“We’re finding that not all students that are needing services aren’t getting it,” said O’Hagen. “Also, we’re finding that staff are taking more leave to deal with the workload.”
The survey showed that 51 per cent of respondents face violence every day, with 83 per cent of all respondents saying the have experienced violent or disruptive incidents in their work area, which includes 96 per cent of educational assistants or child and youth workers. Majority (81 per cent) of respondents feel stress due to the overload of work.
The union said the Waterloo Catholic District School Board alone face $30 million in cuts for per pupil funding. Outside of school hours, 56 per cent of respondents note they do unpaid work for the school board as well.
The union is calling on the provincial government to increase funding for school boards, properly staff in school boards and address the rise in violence.
