'It’s old. It’s outdated': Renewed calls for a change in the province’s public education funding model

The Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) held its annual leaders' meeting on Tuesday at RBC Place London. The meeting gives vice-principals, principals, and board managers a chance to focus on critical issues for the upcoming school year.

The keynote speaker was Mark Daley, Western University's Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer. Changes in technology, and an understanding of the impacts of those changes, have resulted in a number of new school policies.

TVDSB Education Director Mark Fisher said the board is taking a new approach to social media, "We have eliminated access on a lot of board-generated devices to a lot of platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram; things that we know can have really detrimental effects to kids if they're used too often."

Fisher told CTV News access to cellphones and other devices is also being limited for some students, "Students in K (kindergarten) to [Grade] six, we're really going to restrict the usage of cellphones in class. From [grades] 7 to 12, it's only going to be at the direction of the instructor. And it's going to be very targeted, very specific."

There's also a renewed effort to deal with the impacts of poverty and housing instability, with a new program launched Tuesday by the Thames Valley Education Foundation.

TVDSB System Leaders' Meeting at RBC Place London on Aug. 27, 2024. (Gerry Dewan/CTV News London)

"It's called the Food Security Fund,” explained foundation Executive Director Brittany Webb. “It will go to schools directly to make sure that those breakfast programs, those pantry programs, snack programs, nutritional programs have funding. So when kids are at school, they're fed."

Webb stressed the importance of having a full stomach while learning.

She’s also sympathetic to the anxiety felt by some families, “Sometimes we have parents that have to decide if they want to send their child to school without a lunch or just keep them home. So we want to make sure that they know that if they do send them school without a lunch they're getting fed at school; that parents don't have to take that burden on. That students can stay in class.”

Fisher admits that the impacts of the pandemic continues to be felt, with a number of students still not back in school on a consistent basis, "Certain students haven't come back to the degree that we need them to come back. So we're doing a very intentional outreach with the target of 90 per cent attendance for kids. We’ll be making phone calls, we’ll be putting supports in place. If kids aren't in school they're missing socialization opportunities and they're just not able to make the gains that we need to see them make."

Rebecca Avey said one thing that's needed is a radical change to the school funding model, which is now more than 20 years old, "It's old, it's outdated. Our student needs have changed. Our staffing needs have changed."

Avey is president of CUPE Local 7575, the union that represents educational assistants and student supervisors.

They support teachers in the classroom, often aiding students who have physical disabilities, learning disabilities, and socialization challenges.

She said staffing continues to be an issue, with older staff members retiring and many new staff members leaving the profession soon after they enter, feeling overwhelmed by the workload or concerned about personal safety, "You walk in every day and you try to meet the highest student needs that you can every single day. You triage the needs of that school.”

She added, “Unfortunately, that takes a physical and mental strain on staff and other students in the building as well."

Avey said when incidents happen in the classroom, particularly when there’s a physical confrontation, even students not directly involved in the incident are impacted psychologically, and that impacts their learning.

Fisher said steps have been taken to provide mental health supports for students, with those supports extending to family members, "We offer wrap-around services. We have paraprofessionals and professionals. We ran workshops throughout the summer, and we're going to make sure that we are connecting with students and giving them the support, or access and pathways to the support that they need."