To the editor,
As a current teacher and the current local President of the Huron-Superior Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) I advocate for Ontario’s teachers, students, workers, and families on a daily basis.
For the last seven years, teachers in Sault Ste. Marie and the Algoma District have watched the erosion of Ontario’s publicly funded education system play out in our classrooms.
A recent letter was posted by a former educator who has not been in a classroom in almost 15 years and certainly has no understanding of current realities in our education system.
The author of that letter has no concept of how the pandemic impacted and continues to impact students and education workers.
School violence is at an all-time high, putting both students and education workers at risk. Class sizes are too large to give students the individual attention and care they need.
And Ontario is facing a dire teacher recruitment and retention crisis where everyday classes are being covered by unqualified individuals. Underpinning it all is the Ford government’s active choice to continue to underfund education since coming to office in 2018.
We know these issues will only get worse if immediate changes aren’t made.
We need a government that will stop the reckless cuts to education, go beyond empty promises, and make the real investments in publicly funded education that students need and deserve. The Ford Conservative government is clearly on the wrong track.
From its $3 billion inflationary-cut to education, to its failure to address the growing teacher shortage, to its refusal to meaningfully work with teachers in the province, this government has made its priorities clear – and publicly funded education is not one of them.
Just because current polling shows that Doug Ford may become Premier again, does not mean that he should. Our students do not have four more years! Ontario cannot afford four more years!
Darrell Czop
Huron-Superior OECTA
Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.