A sea of protesters took to the streets of Chatham Tuesday afternoon to rally against provincial cuts to education funding.
Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, the Association of Franco-Ontarian Teachers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees marched up and down Keil Drive near Chatham-Kent Leamington MPP Rick Nicholls' office to speak out against the conservative government's cuts to education including increased class sizes.
Jennifer Kumpf, president for OSSTF district 10, said they chose to hold the rally in front of Nicholls' office in hopes of putting pressure on him to make better choices when it comes to public education funding through the PC government.
"The proposed class size increases, for secondary specifically, are a reduction of 25 per cent of our teachers," Kumpf said. "That's just not good for kids, it's not good for the economy. We need the public to be aware of what these cuts mean to them."
Earlier in the month, layoff notices were issued to 52 elementary school teachers and 59 high school teachers in the Lambton Kent District School Board, for a total of 111 layoffs for the 2019-2020 school year.
Nicholls responded to the layoffs by saying it was ‘common practice’ for notices to be sent out around this time of year as school boards prepare their budgets for the year ahead. However, information obtained by Blackburn News shows that in the five-year history of layoff notices in the LKDSB, it had been three years since any secondary school teachers were laid off. The last round of layoff notices issued was for the 2015-2016 school year, with 33 teachers being declared redundant. The school year before that, 21 teachers received layoff notices.
"This is not normal. This is not standard. This is an unprecedented number for us locally," Kumpf said. "We're deeply concerned about what these cuts mean for kids, for class options. There's been accusations of fear-mongering but, you can talk to a number of people on this picket line right now that can tell you they've lost their job and don't know what September's going to bring for them."
Alisha Walters, a secondary school teacher in Wallaceburg, is one of those 111 teachers who received a letter telling her that come August 31, she will most likely be unemployed.
"[I'm] sad, a little scared. Just worried about what the school year's going to look like next year for us and the students," said Walters. "It's frustrating because there's no clear explanations about what's going on. What money's available, what it's going to look like in September, what classes are going to be like for the students, the type of classes that are going to be offered, are going to be cut. Just all the unknowns and uncertainties."
A similar rally is planned in Sarnia on Wednesday.
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-With files from Matt Weverink
