GREATER SUDBURY, Ont. — A student gets to school, and finds that one of their indoor shoes is missing. The child becomes upset, and starts swinging their backpack at other students.
The teacher intervenes, and the student charges the teacher, hitting them in the stomach, and causing them to hit the wall behind them.
A call for help is made, but help doesn’t arrive until 45 minutes later. In the meantime, the teacher uses non-violent crisis intervention techniques to de-escalate the situation, even though they’ve been assaulted.
“This is a real incident that someone has shared with me,” said Liana Holm, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) Rainbow local, representing elementary teachers with the Rainbow District School Board.
“How would you feel if you walked into your workplace and were threatened, punched, kicked, a backpack swung at you, uttered threats, or it sent you to the ER. Then you are expected to go back and do your job like nothing happened.”
Holm said she receives reports like these every day from educators, and 77 per cent of ETFO members said they have personally experienced violence or witnessed violence against other staff members.
The union leader made these remarks at a Jan. 8 press conference that outlined the consequences of cuts to education spending in Ontario.
“So what are we looking for?” Holm asked. “We're looking for more caring adults in schools who are trained to deal with the issues that students bring to school.”
That includes more occasional teachers, educational assistants, early childhood educators and mental health professionals, as well as smaller class sizes.
“Learning will continue to be disrupted with a lack of investment in public education,” Holm said. “Our schools are suffering from chronic underfunding, underresourcing and understaffing, creating environments where students’ needs are going unmet.”
MPP Jamie West, who also spoke at the press conference, said there has been an 11-per-cent drop in real per-capita spending on education since Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government came to power in 2018.
Information provided by the MPP’s office also said that if spending kept pace with inflation and enrolment growth, it would be $3.1 billion higher this year alone, and, compared to 2018, funding is down $1,500 per student after adjusting for inflation.
The ETFO has created an online tool where people can search for their local school, and access the cuts per student for the 2024-2025 school year.
“I've heard from multiple parents whose child is struggling at school because the funding is simply not there to give their child the resources that they need,” West said.
He pointed to areas such as literacy or speech therapy, mental health resources, transportation or educational assistants.
“The Conservative government has continued the previous Liberal government's underfunding of Ontario schools, and as a result of years of funding cuts, the supports simply aren't there anymore,” West said.
Several school boards in Ontario are projecting deficits for the 2024-2025 school year, and two local boards, the Rainbow District School Board and the Sudbury Catholic District School Board, are pulling from their reserves to balance their budgets.
“It's important that people connect this back to the provincial government, because the school board takes the heat,” West said. “People phone the school board, right? And they only have so many dollars to do what they need to do.”
Also speaking at the press conference was Jessica Montgomery, president of the Sudbury and District Labour Council. But she said she was there in the capacity of her most important job title — mother.
Montgomery shared her struggles in finding help within the education system for her 11-year-old son, who has special needs.
She said they’ve faced a lack of adequate support in the classroom, long wait lists for testing for his communication disorder and having to pay out of pocket for tools and resources necessary to bridge his gaps, maxing out her Visa and taking out lines of credit.
Montgomery said she wants to ask the province what’s happening to the kids whose parents aren’t able to advocate for their children as fiercely as she has done, or lack financial means to fill in the gaps.
“Those kids, they fall through the cracks,” she said.
Cuts to education “represent funding that could have gone toward the supports that my son and his classmates need in the classroom to better succeed,” Montgomery said.
“To all the parents out there who feel frustrated and exhausted and like they're ready to give up, I hear you,” she said. “We have to keep fighting together.”
Sudbury.com reached out to Ontario Education Minister Jill Dunlop’s office for a response to these stats, and they responded with a written statement, which was added to this story following its initial publication.
“Our government has made historic investments in education, including $29 billion in funding to school boards for the 2024/25 school year, the largest investment in Ontario’s education system," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the Rainbow District School Board is projected to receive $229.0 million in 2024-25 through Core Education Funding, which is an increase of 3.7 per cent, while enrolment is projected to increase by 1.9 per cent.
The Sudbury Catholic District School Board is projected to receive $106.5 million in 2024-25 through Core Education Funding, which is an increase of 2.4 per cent, while enrolment is projected to decrease by 0.4 per cent.
"Since coming into government, we have increased special education funding year over year to over $3.5 billion this school year and supported the hiring of 9,000 additional education staff," said the minister's spokesperson. "We’ve also provided $118 million in mental health supports, representing a 577% increase. We will continue to support student achievement and get students back to basics on building foundational reading, writing, and math skills that prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow.”
Enrolment numbers provided by the local school boards show student numbers have been on the rise in recent years, with Rainbow board enrolment rising from 14,285 to 14,487 students between October 2023 and October 2024. The Sudbury Catholic board said the average daily enrolment in October 2024 stood at 6,966 students, while the 2023-2024 annual average enrolment was 6,765 students.
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
