Education cuts will gut vital services: union
Nancy Boone’s youngest daughter, Catherine, was in kindergarten when a teacher told the mother of two that something was different about her 5-year-old.
Catherine had never been in daycare, and no one had ever said anything about her to Boone, who noticed her daughter kept to herself a little but didn’t think too much of it.
Boone took her to see a neuropsychiatrist after the teacher recommended it. She was given a diagnosis of developmental disorders tied to autism, and later dyspraxia, a condition that makes it difficult for her to organize things, plan or focus her thoughts.
By the time Catherine started Grade 1, all the proper support was in place at her school to help with her education. Through her second year of high school, she received help from a special education technician for four hours a week. She had guidance counselling and saw a child life specialist regularly.
In June, she’ll graduate from high school, and next fall she’ll start CEGEP, studying 3D animation.
Unions and parents like Boone are concerned about children like Catherine in Quebec, as the provincial budget forces cuts to education professionals in school boards across the province.
“I know Catherine wouldn’t be where she is today without those services,” Boone said. “The same services are being cut across the province.”
On Tuesday, Johanne Pomerleau, head of the FPPE-CSQ, a union group representing education professionals in school boards across Quebec, said the “slow bleeding out” of services offered in schools needs to stop.
“School boards aren’t able to absorb cuts anymore,” Pomerleau said. “If there was fat to trim, it’s long gone.”
“They’re cutting at the bone now,” added Boone.
The cuts represent the equivalent of 250 full-time positions lost in the FPPE-CSQ’s 69 school boards for next fall, Pomerleau explained, adding how it includes librarians, psychologists, guidance counsellors and other education professionals. The cuts represent more than 8,000 fewer hours of services for students in Quebec, she said.
In five English school boards in Quebec — Riverside, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Lester B. Pearson, New Frontiers and Western Québec — the equivalent of 17 full-time positions will disappear in September, Pomerleau said.
“It’s not enormous, but the cuts will hurt many students,” said Dominic Di Stefano, a spiritual community animator for 36 English schools. “And these are people losing jobs. Single moms, professionals juggling two part-time jobs. Jobs they know they’re qualified to do.”
As an animator, Di Stefano said he teaches kids about character building, the impact of bullying, the importance of community service and drug abuse prevention.
After the cuts in September, there will be only two animators for 36 schools.
“We’re another essential service that will be dropped on the teachers’ shoulders,” he said.
Corinne Payne, head of an umbrella group representing 62 parents’ committees across the province, said she fears kids will increasingly fall through the cracks if the cuts don’t stop.
“It’s important that every child in Quebec gets the services that they need at the right moment,” she said. “It can be the difference between failure and success, between an active or difficult life as an adult.”
Boone said she has invited Education Minister François Blais to visit the schools and see how the specialists interact with the children. She said she’d like Blais to see the spark in a child’s eyes when they understand something new, when they pass a test or when they see their report card and realize they’re moving on to the next grade.
“To look at that spark in their eyes,” she said. “And know that with more budget cuts, it will be extinguished.”