Канадские учителя вынуждены тратить личные средства на материалы из-за бюджетных сокращений

Stacey Monk has been teaching for 35 years, 16 of which have been at Cedarcrest Elementary School in Saint-Laurent, where she has taught Grade 4. This upcoming school year will be her last, yet she still has the same love for teaching as the first day she entered a classroom. “It’s joyous to be able to connect with the children, and the more that you develop that connection in the classroom, the more they’re willing to take risks in their learning,” she said. There will always be materials and resources required in teaching, but unfortunately Monk has seen over the years how budget cuts have greatly impacted her ability to get supplies for her students. “In our photocopy budget, we’re limited to the number of copies that we can make per year,” she said. “All those budgets are almost down to nothing.” Monk added that there has been a significant decrease in supplies she has gotten from the school’s official material supplier. “We used to be able to get boxes full of things, and now you’re lucky if one box comes in your name and you open it up, and it’s got two sticky tacks, a few Sharpie markers and a pack of whiteboard markers, and that’s it.” Like many others, she has also had to spend out of her own pocket to decorate her classroom to create an enjoyable environment for her students. “Any elementary school classroom that you’re going to walk into and see it decorated with colourful areas for the children to relax in or to spend time reading comes from the teacher’s pocket,” said Monk. Kristey Westlake has been a teacher for almost 20 years and has been teaching Grade 3 students for 14 years at St. Charles Elementary School in Pierrefonds-Roxboro. She said that her school’s administration does everything that it can to finance necessities and larger projects, but because of reduced budgets, she must purchase her own supplies and specialized materials for students who may require different approaches to learn. “Grade 3 is a pivotal year where a lot of special needs start to begin to differentiate the learning in the students, and so […] all of those tools to help the kids that don’t fall in that 60 per cent average that don’t need anything are the ones that I spend the most money on,” said Westlake, who has purchased items like fidget and breathing toys, reading strips, coloured acetates and logic games to help her students. But the issues don’t just stop with supplies. Westlake has also had to invest her own labour by spending three days painting her classroom to cover up the rundown the old paint. “I spend more time with those kids than their parents do,” she said. “The space has got to be clean, safe, warm, inviting, and when it looks dingy and dirty — while they might only be eight or nine — they still see it and they still feel it.” Last summer, the Quebec government announced that it would add $540 million to the education budget for this past school year after being criticized for announcing cuts that would have amounted to $570 million. But the situation in classrooms still hasn’t changed for elementary school teachers. Pina Fulginiti teaches robotics and English at St. Edmund Elementary School in Beaconsfield and has had to purchase materials for her classes out of pocket. She is worried about the potential of these cuts falling onto the parents. “That parent that has the five students, it’s very difficult for them to be able to buy all the school supplies that are needed for all of their five children,” she said. “Nowadays, it’s not just school supplies, it’s gone to a point where the kids need an iPad or they need a Chromebook, or they need a computer.” Monk is also worried that these conditions might help to discourage others from becoming teachers and has noticed that there are fewer interns at her school. “Less than 10 years ago, stages for student teaching would fill the schools, and they would come en masse,” she said, adding, “Now, we had a few this year. I would say probably less than 10 in the whole year.” n