Political action

Education cuts prompt community plan

Following two well-attended education town hall meetings in Picton and Wellington recently, organizer Rob Garden scheduled a follow-up meeting Monday evening at the Bloomfield Town Hall. The action-focused meeting was the next step to determine what can and should be done to send a message to the provincial government and local politicians to voice concern over proposed cuts to education.

At last week’s presentation in Wellington, parents, students and community members learned about the future of education in Prince Edward County. Specifically, the meeting highlighted changes to the student teacher ratio from 22:1 to 28:1, proposed mandatory changes and centralization of elearning, and a reduction in school operations funding, which will also reduce the number of support staff.

“We came together as teachers to find a form to get information out to the public, because we knew as teachers we had a lot of understanding about what was going on, but we needed an opportunity to share it,” said Rob Garden, a parent and a teacher at PECI. “The town hall in Picton was really successful, and from that we had people ask if we could do another one. During that second town hall, again, the message was clear to the community that they wanted an opportunity to get together to think about how they could take action.”

The proposed changes will also mean the cancellation of many smaller programs currently offered, especially in technology and the arts, with concern expressed many extra-curricular activities will be impacted, as well noting fewer supports will be in place for at-risk students. The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) anticipates the impact of the government’s changes could see 60 to 80 full-time teaching positions eliminated within the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board.

The potential implications of the changes proposed by the provincial government were outlined at last week’s meeting by Marian Moon, OSSTF Hastings-Prince Edward District 29 executive officer (and PECI teacher), and Scott Marshall, OSSTF Local 29 president. As guest speaker, Dr. Charles Pascal provided expert opinion at the Wellington meeting.

This week’s political action meeting was a roundtable brainstorming session to determine if, and how, participants can make a difference in the face of proposed provincial government cuts to education in Prince Edward County. About two dozen parents, grandparents, students, teachers and former educators all chimed in on why action needs to be taken to stop the proposed cuts, and to bring attention to the issues in an attempt to make a difference.

Comments from community members ranged from concerns surrounding after-school programming, e-learning, early childhood education, the impact on students with autism and the disappearance of specialty classes. “We have some good teachers in the County and we should be proud of that,” said one attendee. Another said, “Enough is enough; we can’t keep allowing our governments to keep taking us apart, piece-by-piece-by piece until we have nothing left.”

A small student contingent expressed their views: “We are here because we think it is important the students’ voices are represented in these conversations because the youth of Ontario do care a lot about these issues. And we want to make sure that we are all working towards creating a future in this province that we can all appreciate and thrive in.”

One gentleman said it wasn’t about teachers facing a lack of job opportunities. As a former teacher, he said he cares about what happens to students and their role in our future. “The education system in Ontario is a really good one and has increased over a period of time,” he said. He described the proposed cuts as backward steps that hurt the kids and their future. “It breaks my heart that our government is working slowly toward privatization,” said one woman. “I think quality education should be a right for all people to access and not based on dollars,” she said.

“I think the message to the community is that we are greater in numbers,” said Garden. “We are looking to build an organization; we are looking to build a network and a group of people who are interested in stepping up and making positive change to the government.”

The meeting moved to discussing strategy, realistic tactics and timeframes, as well as how best to establish a framework to ensure the government cuts to education services are reversed. The organizers spoke to what can be done as a community, what winning looks like and how to win, and how to build power as an organization and as a community. In closing, the organizer said, “We need to have the best possible education system we can possibly have.” To receive notification of future meetings or for further information, contact Rob Garden at garden.robbie@gmail.com.