Ontario NDP holds virtual townhall

Education: A Year in Review

SUDBURY – With more students facing online learning this week due to the provincial lockdown, it felt timely to hold a virtual townhall to discuss a year in review of education.

The year 2020 was brutal on Ontario’s education system. It started stressful and ended the same way. Parents, educators and students alike are scrambling through the motions trying to make all of this work without any real support from the Conservative government.

We also can’t forget that this stress level didn’t simply start after March when COVID-19 invaded our province. The Ford government positioned themselves against educators since day one.

In 2019, the provincial government came up with a plan to cut millions from education by removing special education funding, increasing class sizes, removing funding for school repairs and requiring all high school students to take four online courses a year. They even changed the sex-ed curriculum and implemented a “snitch line” that encouraged parents to report teachers.

“The Conservative government has been asking parents not to trust educators since day one. Educators - who take care of our children for 8 hours a day and who do so much good in our community – deserve our utmost respect!

If we need to mistrust anyone, it’s this government. The students spoke out when they rallied and held protests against the curriculum changes. The education unions spoke out when they showed up at the bargaining table and the Ministry did not. Parents spoke out when they didn’t have the ability to stay home with the kids, teach and work all at the same time during lockdowns. The fact that this government continues to repeat its mistakes is unacceptable,” said West.

Marit Stiles, MPP for Davenport and Ontario NDP’s Education Critic as well as Erika Lougheed, Ontario NDP’s Candidate for Nipissing joined MPP West for the discussion.

The townhall highlighted everything from student rallies in 2019, the rotating strikes held by education unions during the winter of 2020, to the start of COVID-19, and it ended with the current online learning and lockdown.

“It’s been an incredibly challenging year in education and now, more than ever, we need to ensure we are supporting our students, parents, care providers and educators in order for communities to get through and recover from this pandemic. We can’t settle for stop-gap measures or status quo solutions that do not support a strong public education sector. The Ford government has repeatedly demonstrated that they prefer to make things up on the fly, or worse, use the pandemic to dismantle public education, causing an incredible amount of stress for everyone involved along the way. I’m happy we were able to give people a voice to be heard with this discussion”, said Lougheed.

Stiles said: “Students, education workers, and their families, have shown incredible resilience over a very tumultuous year for our schools. They deserve a government that will have their backs, and deliver the funding, supports and plan to keep kids safe, supported and learning.”

The Ontario NDP is calling for:

• A class size cap at 15, and school bus cap at 50 per cent capacity
• Rapidly upgrading school ventilation
• Supports to address the learning gaps facing students who have been shifted between remote-learning and in-class learning, especially those with special needs
• Partnership with education workers and school boards, which have often been left out of decision-making