Thank you very much, Speaker. When the debate ended this morning, I was speaking about the unprecedented situation we have in our education system right now because of the government’s underfunding of education. There’s really no part of our education system where that’s more true than special education.

We are really seeing our kids with disabilities and learning exceptionalities being put in an impossible position within our school system because of the funding shortfall. Teachers and administrators are telling me stories about principals having to pull kids with special needs around the school with them all day in a wagon because there’s nobody else in the school who’s available to take care of them.

Earlier this year, we had a situation where a student eloped from his school, a student with autism, and no one realized he was gone for over 30 minutes, even though the student is supposed to have one-on-one support at all times, because the government’s underfunding of special education means that schools are being put in a position of making impossible choices.

The Ontario Autism Coalition has warned that with this funding shortfall, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when some child is going to be seriously hurt because of the lack of supports, and yet this government put only $18 million towards special education in this budget. That’s equivalent to the deficit of only two school boards in the province: the Greater Essex school board, which has a deficit of $10 million, and the Halton Catholic District School Board, which has a deficit of $9 million—so it’s actually less than that deficit. What about the other 70? Where’s their funding to support students with special needs?

The problem with not supporting these students is that then they fall through the cracks. There are students who are sitting in a classroom but who are not getting any support with learning at all. One mom told me her son is looking out the window all day. Others have told me their child is being given a worksheet and some crayons instead of having the opportunity to learn.

We’re also seeing this erupt in frustration and violence from children who are not getting the supports they need, along with students who are not getting the mental health supports they need. I just want to read this message from an education worker from Hamilton, who said:

“My EA team is burnt out, we’re attacked on a regular basis and we’re short handed almost every day because there are not enough supplies to pick up open jobs. We are all juggling way too many high needs students, we are struggling to be effective in our roles because all we’re doing is putting out fires.” The Minister of Education “has done nothing to make schools safer and stability is a thing of the past at this point, things keep getting worse ever since the pandemic.

“The students are not okay and we don’t have the manpower or the properly skilled professionals to meet their needs. We need mental health professionals, more social workers and more self contained classes for the students who are not able to function safely in regular class. We have had five staff sent to hospital this year because of the violence of just one of our spec ed students.”

A teacher from Waterloo sent me this message: “I’m in a K-6 school. This week so far we’ve had a non verbal student elope and run off campus, three different students trash three different classrooms, one staff member get assaulted by a student, and two class evacuations. And it’s only Wednesday.”

And yet what did the government put in this budget to address violence in our schools? There’s $30 million for surveillance cameras and vape detectors, but nothing for additional mental health supports, educational assistants, admin staff, professional development for teachers and education workers on de-escalation and addressing violence. Apparently, our schools are just supposed to watch on video as students, teachers and education workers get attacked, without being able to do anything about it.

Another area that the budget fails to address is the teacher shortage. We are seeing teachers burnt out and struggling. They feel like no one cares what happens inside of our schools. They’ve dealt with the indignity and the insults of Bill 124 and the incredible disrespect of this government throughout the past four years as they’ve been doing incredible work throughout the pandemic, and so teachers are leaving the system, unable to take the conditions any more, able to earn more money in a less difficult situation outside of the sector or in a different province. And so we have unqualified teachers in our classrooms. We have classes that are congregating in the library for the day because there’s no teacher for them. High school students are telling me there’s an absenteeism problem because why bother going to school if you’re not going to be taught anything for the day, and yet the government failed to even mention this in the budget, let alone even address it.

I could go on for another 20 minutes, Speaker, on just everything the government failed to do on education in this budget, but unfortunately, I’m out of time, so I hope I get lots of questions about education.