Over a hundred people made their voices heard outside of the Greater Essex County District School Board office.
A rally was held Tuesday evening outside of the office to speak out against the cuts made by the board's trustees at the beginning of November to balance their budget.
The board is facing a $6.3-million deficit, and during the November 5 meeting, the trustees approved to submit a Multi-Year Financial Recovery Plan that would balance the budget by 2026-27, to be in compliance with the Ministry of Education.
That plan included eliminating the International Baccalaureate (IB) program in elementary schools and phasing out the IB program in secondary schools, restructuring supports for students in the Reaching Individual Success and Excellence (RISE) program, reducing unfunded psychologists and speech language pathologist positions, eliminating a total of 63 positions, among more.
Erin Roy, District 9 President of Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, says she's heard from those in the community who are disappointed the IB program has been cut.
"There's some parents that are very upset because they sent their students to the schools for Grade 9 and 10, and now they won't be able to continue with the program. And they feel like they were sold the idea that their student would be able to go there until graduation for the IB program, and unfortunately the board had to make the decision to cut the program."
Jacqueline Andersch's son Lochlan is in the RISE program, she says these programs being cut aren't wants - they're needs.
"I am really disgusted with the lack of forethought from these trustees in moving towards a decision that will benefit our children. They're taking programs away that have proven to be beneficial."
Andersch says she's concerned her son will fall through the cracks.
"They don't have a plan, they don't know what they're going to do. They say that they're going to do something, but do I trust that they're going to make a decision that's going to assist him? They don't have enough EA's [Education Assistants], they don't have enough ECE's [Early Childhood Educators], who's going to be there supporting these kids? These teachers are already overwhelmed."
Mario Spagnuolo, President of the Greater Essex local of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, says this decision will hurt the children who are most vulnerable.
"The cuts that are going to take place are going to affect our special education students, our students that are in RISE, they have learning disability needs, developmental disabilities, mild intellectual disabilities, these are the kids that need our support the most, yet they're the first ones that are getting the cuts."
Shelley Deane, President of Professional Student Services, says she's heard concerns from not only parents, but teachers as well.
"The services that we provide are very specialized. 80 per cent of the people in my group have either a masters degree or a PhD, they're regulated health professionals, and again they provide very specialized services. And these are services that teachers cannot provide in the classroom, and so we need to support our students, and we need to support our teachers."
Those rallying are hopeful that there is still time to change the course of the decision made by the trustees by continuing to advocate for students.
The recovery plan was submitted to the Ministry of Education by November 30.
If the Board had voted to not approve the recovery plan, the Ministry of Education would've taken over and would have been able to make 100 per cent of the decisions moving forward.