Education workers with CUPE Local 5100 held an information picket outside the Grand Erie District School Board head office on Monday, May 25, 2026.
Robin Sweers, recording secretary for CUPE Local 5100 and a member mobilizer with Ontario School Board Council of Unions, said the event was designed to inform people of what she described as planned staffing cuts at the Grand Erie District School Board.
“CUPE Local 5100 was informed recently by the Grand Erie District School Board that they were going to be cutting some positions. They call them ‘shifts,’ we call them cuts. Anything that takes away hours of work, rate of pay, or jobs in general is a cut, and I don’t care what they call it. A cut is a cut,” she said. “We don’t just want the Grand Erie District School Board to know that we’re angry and we’re fighting. We want the public to know why we’re angry and what we’re fighting for. We’re education workers; we are the lowest paid people in education, and we’re not asking for the moon… we’re asking for enough people to do our jobs safely and appropriately in schools.”
Sweers went on to say that the cuts will impact educational assistants, facilities and office/clerical staff across the board, and ultimately students.
“We are the custodians who keep things clean for everybody, the IT people that keep our technology going, the school secretaries whose schools wouldn’t run without them and the EAs that work with our most vulnerable kids. Our workloads have increased tenfold and you cannot cut our positions, but put money into things like the Centre for Excellence,” she said. “…What we’re saying is the money the school board has, needs to go to classrooms and it needs to support our most vulnerable students. We need more EAs working with kids. There’s incredible amounts of violence in our schools right now, and it’s because an EA cannot support 567 kids throughout a building who have high needs. Those kids are not properly supported and that leads to violence.”
Sweers, who works as an EA, said that while some people have told her, and others, to just get another job, they shouldn’t have to.
“I’ve done this job for 27 years, I’m not getting another job. I chose to work with kids with special education needs; I’ve done it since I was 14 and volunteered at Brantwood Community Services,” she said. “This is my passion, I don’t want a new job… I just want what I need to do my job well because I signed up to help kids learn, not to go work every day dressed up like an NHL goalie.”
Members of the Grand Erie Elementary Teachers’ Federation were also among those picketing along Erie Avenue.
“We are here standing in solidarity with our CUPE 5100 colleagues. They are going to see what the board calls ‘shifts’ to positions that we see as a cut,” said Carolyn Proulx-Wootton, president of the Grand Erie Elementary Teachers’ Federation. “At this moment in time, our schools are so drastically underfunded that anything called a shift in any discretionary funding that does not go directly into student supports like our EAs, our secretaries, or our custodians means less for our schools, and we cannot live with any thing less than what we already have.”
Proulx-Wootton encouraged members of the public to do their research and voice their concerns about school funding.
“We really need to look deeply at what the government is saying it’s doing, versus what it’s actually doing,” she said. “We encourage everyone to reach out to your local MPP, either Will Boma or Bobbi Ann Brady. Speak to them about the cuts in schools and what we need to see, because our students are the future of our province, and if we don’t invest in them, what are we saying about our future, and what are we saying about their worth and their value?”
In response to an email from the Brant Beacon, Ryan Strang, Senior Manager of Communications and Community Relations for the school board, said they “remain focused on student success and the learning environment.”
“Our goal is to ensure staff are placed where student needs are greatest,” he said. “The current discussions involve staffing shifts and reallocations, which are standard procedures as we approach the end of a collective agreement. We do not anticipate any permanent layoffs among our CUPE staffing groups.”
Strang continued to say, “Our investment to increase the number of educational assistants has exceeded enrolment growth. This investment in student success will continue, not a reduction in service.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
