Education workers in Windsor-Essex took to the streets on Wednesday to rally for increased funding in the sector, aiming to avoid further strain on students and teachers.
Outside the office of Andrew Dowie, the MPP for Windsor-Tecumseh, more than 80 people from various unions representing workers in the school system waved flags and led chants.
The protest aligned with similar showings across Ontario as part of a provincewide day of action.
In some cases, a directive by the province to rein in spending and cut deficits has led to the elimination of jobs, such as the elimination of 40 full-time positions at the CSC Providence School Board between Windsor and Owen Sound - which just got approved Monday night.
Local unions also stressed a domino affect, where changes to staffing will have an impact across the school board, mainly on the students.
Mario Spagnuolo, local president for the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario, says educators bear the brunt of "continued cutbacks" to the system.
"Teachers and education workers are fed up with doing more with less, and having a government that doesn't support students, specifically our students with special needs."
Anthony Cutrone, President of CUPE Local 4299, representing 850 full-time and part-time staff members at the CSC Providence School Board, says there's a shortfall in the funding from the Ford government.
"We also have a problem with the administration of that funding, and administration has known about this problem since 2022, and it has come to a head where the government has said 'you need to balance the books, and you have to come in the black', so here we go... 40 jobs we lose to make sure that those books are balanced."
Cutrone says the cuts are affecting library techs, IT workers, secretaries, ECEs and more.
"Without us, honestly, it just doesn't work. We can't open that door to make sure that the kids are safe, that the place is cleaned, the IT department [makes sure] that the infrastructure's working. We do everything."
Avery Dagenais, a Grade 12 student at E.J. Lajeunesse, says the moves are "unfair".
"We should be cutting other things, not the people who are building us and building our schools and building our communities, because the future generation matters just as much as we do right now."
Spagnuolo told CTV News he has a meeting scheduled with the MPP in the coming weeks.
CTV News has reached out to Dowie for comment on the rally outside his office.
-with files from CTV Windsor's Robert Lothian