Hastings and Prince Edward frontline schooling staff name foul on faculty cuts

Frontline schooling staff demonstrated exterior and attended inside on the Hastings and Prince Edward District Faculty Board (HPEDSB) assembly on final night time.

Regardless of rising enrollment and this faculty board’s personal projection that funding will improve for the 2022-2023 faculty yr beginning in September, trustees are chopping 11 frontline staff: custodians, upkeep, and clerical workers.

“There is a rise in all the main authorities grants that fund frontline schooling staff’ positions right here,” stated Jo-Anne White, president of CUPE 1022. “We’ve finished our half, now it’s time for trustees to do theirs. Trustees should reject any proposed cuts of their funds.”

CUPE-Ontario Faculty Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU) members are dedicated to guaranteeing companies for college students – companies that children want and their caregivers demand. In 2019, throughout the frontline staff’ final spherical of bargaining with the provincial authorities and college boards, CUPE–OSBCU members negotiated the Training Employees Safety Fund particularly to cease these kinds of damaging cuts that hurt college students.

“Custodians have to know there will probably be sufficient of them to combat the following wave of COVID-19. Clerical Employees go in early and keep late – working unpaid time – to guard college students’ security and make sure the easy operation of our faculties. Instructional Assistants see that extra of them should be employed to offer the one-on-one helps college students want and households demand. Early Childhood Educators must be in each kindergarten classroom to offer our youngest college students the hands-on experiences that four- and five-year-old crave,” defined Laura Walton president of CUPE’s OSBCU.

“The bottom-paid schooling staff are on the chopping block, they usually shouldn’t be,” stated Walton. “These are individuals who have labored on the frontlines all through the pandemic, they’re the spine of each neighborhood’s faculties. Nobody voted for extra cuts and it’s time for Hastings and Prince Edward trustees to cross a no-cuts funds.”

CUPE 1022 represents 700 Hastings and Prince Edward District Faculty Board custodians, faculty secretaries, laptop technicians and technologists, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, heating air flow and air-con staff, scholar supervision displays, academic assistants, designated early childhood educators, communications problems assistants, library technicians, and schooling centre workers.

The Ontario Faculty Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU) unites 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Public Workers (CUPE) who work within the public, Catholic, English, and French faculty programs all through Canada’s largest province. OSBCU members are academic assistants, faculty library staff, administrative assistants, custodians and tradespeople, early childhood educators, little one and youth staff, instructors, vitamin service staff, audio-visual technologists, faculty security displays, and social staff.