Concussions, stitches, bruises, PTSD are just some of the repercussions of being an education worker in Ontario and Guelph is no different.
Local union presidents who collectively represent over a thousand education assistants (EA) and early childhood educators (ECE) say that every member in their union has either been subject to violence or harassment or has witnessed it happen to a colleague.
“It makes me angry,” said Cheryl Lampkin, president of OSSTF District 18 who represents 1,100 permanent and casual educational assistants (EA) and early childhood educators (ECE) in the UGDSB.
“We've been lobbying the government about this issue since I became president in 2016, that the violence that our members are experiencing is is escalating at an exponential rate.”
The University of Ottawa recently published a report about harassment and violence experienced by education sector workers (except teachers) that include EAs, ECEs, child and youth workers (CYWs) and school support staff such as clerical, maintenance, trade, and food service workers.
The study, done between 2018 to 2019, surveyed 3,854 CUPE education workers. The respondents were predominantly women, between the ages 41 and 50.
It found that “89 per cent experienced a threat, attempt, or act of physical violence from one or more sources (i.e. students, parents, colleagues, administrators) during the 2018-2019 school year; 70 per cent experienced some type of physical force (e.g., hitting, kicking, biting, being hit by a thrown object), and almost 60 per cent experienced one or more threats to use physical force. Overwhelmingly, the violence was perpetrated by students.”
After reading this study, Lampkin said she felt triggered.
“It's like people are hearing this for the first time and this has been going on for a while and our members are working in such challenging situations trying to do the best they can to support our neediest students,” said Lampkin.
Since she became president of the local union, she regularly hears from local EAs and ECEs.
“They're being stabbed with items that are not necessarily a weapon but are being used as a weapon. So pens, pencils, rulers slapped across the face. My racialized members are being harassed, racially, They're sworn at,” said Lampkin.
“I get a lot of phone calls from members in tears where they can't even breathe because, you know, it's the fourth day of having their hair ripped out of their head and they can't do it another day.”
From early September until Thursday, Laura Sotirelis, president of OSSTF District 18 representing workers at the Wellington Catholic District School Board, said there have been 100 incidents where education workers were physically attacked by a student.
Sotirelis represents 208 ECEs, child youth workers, speech and language pathologists, social workers and behaviour analysts. She said many workers don’t even report the incidents.
Lampkin said Sotirelis both say there needs to be more support from the provincial government to increase support systems in schools.
“We're in a resource crisis. That's a part of the problem. We're in a pandemic, which has only aggravated the situation because our students are struggling to deal with the pandemic as well as their own trauma in their own lives in their homes,” said Lampkin.
Both district presidents say the school boards do as much as they can to help but it ultimately comes down to a problem or funding and lack of resources.
Sotirelis also pointed out that EA jobs have also changed significantly over time. In the past, EAs supported students who need extra help with math or language, now they're being assigned based on their availability to students who have physical or behavioural needs.
“Just even in how the work is being done has changed a lot over the last 10 years. And the kind of work their members are being asked to do on a daily basis,” said Sotirelis.
Lampkin said the part that upsets her the most is how normalized this workplace violence has become to the point that people are becoming desensitized.
She said for some workers, it’s a usual routine to wear protective equipment such as spit shields, Kevlar vests, arm guards, Kevlar gloves and even blockers to stop students from attacking them. During the pandemic, its PPE on top of this equipment.
“I've had times where people believe that that's their job and that is not their job. Their job is not to go to work and have them kicked all day long,” said Lampkin.
She said while physical injuries heal, trauma is different. “They there are people who cannot return to school because of the trauma they've experienced from working in such a violent environment. “
Lapkin said part of the problem is funding and while the school board works hard to find as many EAs as possible but there just aren't enough.
“Members are being spread so thin to support the students that there are just not enough bodies in the school to manage this,” said Lampkin adding that said EAs are the hardest hit by the situation by far.
Sotirelis said the workload has also increased where EAs are expected to do more with fewer resources.
“They are many times where they are the main support for several students, high needs students at one time and that definitely contributes to the possibility that there could be aggression in the classroom. It is definitely a concern," said Sotirelis.
Ultimately for the union presidents, they feel like they're stuck in a rock and a hard place where children have the right to an education and education workers have the right to a safe workplace.
