- Hub staff

On October 10th, parents, students, and education workers will be holding protests at over 700 elementary and secondary schools across Ontario. Owen Sound District Secondary School is on the map of participating schools. 

A similar event was held at the school in April of this year in anticipation of cuts. Graduating student Mathea Treslan wrote an article for the Owen Sound Hub then explaining the students' concerns.

The rallies are being held to protest funding cuts and to celebrate the successful collaboration between CUPE and communities to protect public education.

We anticipate that now, as was the case in May when the #StudentsSayNo movement took action across the province, the Ford government will denounce the action as manipulation by unions, and that students will respond as they did then.

The WalkIn for Education is protesting a 3% average cut in per-student funding across all Ontario public school boards, 10 000 teaching positions to be lost over 4 years, and cuts to supports and special needs services.

“The province’s already underfunded public school system is under attack. We’re seeing larger classes, not enough support for students with special needs, cuts to custodial staff, classroom closures and unsafe building conditions” says Rachel Huo,t a parent at Carleton Village Junior and Senior school, in Toronto.

Students in high school are hard hit, with some classes as big as 46 students. “Due to cancelled classes, some high school students will not be able to graduate on schedule. Forced e-learning will be another major equity issue. This is an unprecedented attack on kids and our futures” states Savi Gellatly-Ladd, a student at Harbord Collegiate Institute.

Some participants see a threat in the federal election.

“The federal and provincial Conservative plans are aligned to continue to defund the public education system to make way for a private, for-profit education model, drastically increasing inequity and further disadvantaging poor and racialized students,” says Anna Galati, a parent with children at Sprucecourt P.S. in Toronto, “We say no, and we want to broadcast the realities of these attacks on public Education to the rest of Canada”.