For the first time, the 200-strong professional student services staff at the York Region District School Board are speaking out in support of its provincial union as contract talks have stalled and another one-day school strike is planned for Jan. 15 at select locations across Ontario.
York Region’s high schools are not affected by Wednesday’s job action. At the time of publication, no new bargaining dates have been scheduled for the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), the Ontario government, and the school boards’ associations.
The OSSTF District 16 Professional Student Services Personnel is a fairly new bargaining unit formed three years ago in the growing region, whose members include school social workers, speech and language pathologists, psychologists, psycho-educational consultants, psychological associates, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, work experience and transition coordinators, and community and partnership developers.
District 16 president Brenda Johnson said her members and the students they serve have been negatively impacted by provincial funding cuts.
“As a province, there has been reductions in the sizes of professional student services personnel bargaining units and, significantly, we’ve lost psychologists and there’s been reductions of full-time equivalent members in the areas of psychology, social work, and child and youth workers,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that while provincial funding for professional student services workers isn’t tied to any one funding line, it’s up to the local school boards to manage their funding pockets, which have seen significant reductions.
“We are supporting a significant number of students when you consider that one in five children need additional supports in the education system,” said Johnson. “Those students are impacted by changes to classroom staffing numbers and they are often marginalized students with significant needs.”
Johnson said the Ontario government remains staunch in its position to increase class sizes, impose mandatory e-learning, and implement funding cuts that will impact critical services and programming.
“Consider a student in a wheelchair, for example, who is academically appropriate for their grade and age level,” she said, adding that many parents are requesting an integrated setting in the classroom for their child. “Maybe they can’t fit their wheelchair into the classroom and they have to sit next to the door.”
“When you have more students in a classroom with less adults, how can our students manage? They’re the most affected,” Johnson said. “Our focus is largely on ensuring that the most vulnerable students in our system are able to get the supports they need in a timely and responsive manner.”
Education Minister Stephen Lecce has repeatedly stated that “union-led escalation to a partial withdrawal of services hurts our children the most”.
"For the fifth time, OSSTF union leaders have directed their members to not show up to class. These union leaders will forcefully advocate for the interests of their members — from higher wages to enhanced entitlements — however, they ought not oppose the academic aspirations of our students," Lecce said in a statement issued Jan. 9.
"Students should be in class. It is most concerning that teacher unions' leaders disagree and continue to impede learning for the next generation. Our government is focused on landing deals that keep students in class so that we end the frustrating experience families face due to predictable union escalation."
