Our education has been chronically underfunded by our provincial government for decades. There are multiple points of impact.
“According to that 2021 data, BC allocates just 3 percent of its GPP to K-12 education, while Manitoba allocates 4.9 percent, Nova Scotia 4.4 percent, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island 4.2 percent, Quebec 4.1 percent, New Brunswick 4 percent, Ontario 3.8 percent and Alberta 3.3 percent. This smaller percentage means BC school boards have less funding available for student support and to provide up-to-date, adequate and safe school buildings.” As stated by Patti Bacchus in her article for CCPA Feb 5th, 2025.
Beyond the obvious impacts on children, systems function differently when resources are scarce. Limited resources change how people interact and behave at the most primal survival levels. There are already many scholarly reports on how scarcity affects decision-making and neuropathways. Scarcity is when there are limited resources and people are not getting what they need. Animal and human behaviour change in these environments. When something is scarce, people will put a higher value on it. People use social capital, aggression, secrecy or whatever strategies they can to obtain those limited resources for their own unfulfilled needs. This is evolution and not a personality deficit.
Whittling the education system to bare bones and creating such a stressful environment of such limited resources turns Mary Poppins into Cruella Deville. Work environments become toxic. People are set up to fail. It is not personal: it is systemic design. Evolutionary instincts kick in, and not the kind ones. Stress bubbles burst. Pushed to their limits, constantly trying to regulate in impossible environments – people snap. Children included. Recruiting and retaining quality educators for any length of time is challenging. This will have more of an impact on students with disabilities and those in marginalized communities. I repeat: this will have MORE of an impact on students with disabilities and those in marginalized communities.
Understaffing is a form of scarcity. When there are not enough people to fill the job duties that are required for functioning, and people need to step over their own job description boundaries to fill in for other people’s work, that has multiple direction points of impact. If it is chronic, then you’ll see the ripple effects of scarcity. Work environments become unhealthy and over time people become very dissatisfied with their work, ultimately pushing them out of the system and creating a deeper wedge in the cycle. It just goes on and on. Underqualified staff just filling “the body” in the role, is not the solution. Take a look at the number of job postings for school districts and take a look at the ones that are just continuously on repeat. The districts are all in the same basket. When you are struggling with high rates of staff absenteeism, that is an indication of a sick work environment. People are decreasing the amount of time they come to work just to keep themselves afloat and try and sustain themselves in such a stressful environment.
Parents are very aware that a teacher’s working environment is our children’s learning environment. We want happy teachers and EAs. We NEED happy teachers and EAs. We don’t want stressed-out educators who are pushed to their emotional capacity limits. This benefits no one.
This current education environment is not sustainable. We are in a crisis. There are multiple factors creating all of this, and it all comes back and lands in the lap of the government. They have not kept up with capital funding for the enrollment growth that school districts are experiencing. This has forced districts to implement a 5-day block schedule for some high schools to avoid paying for portables. The Ministry won’t allow portables to be a capital expense, and it has to come from their operating budgets. Schools are overcrowded. Portable costs are massive expenses removed from funding originally designated for students. This year, operating grant amounts are also only increasing by 1%. Typically they are 2 or 3%. Don’t be misled by statements of additional funding. That is because the number of students with disabilities and diverse abilities is also increasing. More staff are needed, and instead, districts are forced to cut supports.
Articles have been written about the financial crisis in education for years. This is not something coming down the line, something in our future; we are here. It has already arrived, and it is only getting worse. The budgets that school districts are being forced to manipulate will ensure that our children’s days are more complex and they have more unmet needs. Students with disabilities and neurodiversity are seriously harmed, and parents are dealing with children who are traumatized. Members in our Facebook group are reporting that their children are showing symptoms of PTSD.
The chronic underfunding is creating a petri dish of mental health issues for students and staff. The limited support cannot keep up with the demand, complexity and intensity.
Crowded classrooms push kids with disabilities and neurodiversity out the door. Lack of properly trained staff and staff emotionally struggling to manage their jobs pushes kids with disabilities and neurodiversity out the door. We are the canary in the coal mine. We are telling you, screaming at all of you, the canary is dying, and the government is still continuing on.
I am embarrassed to be an adult right now. I feel the need to apologize to every student on behalf of adults my age who are in government, making decisions. Failed election promises. I can’t justify their decisions, and I can’t explain why they do not understand the short-term and long-term effects on society by not properly funding an education system. The education system is designed by human beings. It’s not a natural phenomenon that occurs in nature. We are making conscious decisions every day to maintain this current system. It is THE system of all systems that creates and shapes our society. The decision-making of those in power who decide on policy and legislation directly impact how the money is spent in education and how much is given out. It defies all logic. It’s not even logical decision-making. I shake my head and throw my hands up in the air because it makes zero sense. I cannot explain this, and school trustees cannot explain it either.
To all of the students out there who are struggling, wondering why the world thinks it’s okay to just watch you float away. Parents, guardians, teacher organizations, other adults…we are all trying. We are trying so hard. No one is giving up. We see that you are trying too! I can’t promise you anything, I can just promise you that I will never give up. Lots and lots of people are not giving up. The number of people advocating in education is growing.
To the adults out there who are working so hard trying to make a difference. This is the final hour. We ride at dawn. What does riding at dawn with people who already work 9-5 look like? Our pen is our sword. We need to be relentlessly communicating our concerns to our MLA. They need to listen to their constituents and voice our concerns through their position. They are the ones who step through the wormhole and enter the legislative building. They are the ones communicating behind closed doors with their political party members. If they don’t hear from us, they assume there aren’t any issues.
Find out who your MLA is and email, call or visit their offices. Effectively communicating our needs is the art of advocacy. Holding our politicians accountable for broken election promises is a part of democracy.
The pipeline from a failed education system to the prison system is alive and well. I see it at my work every single day.
Contact your MLA. If you don’t have the spoons to write a letter yourself, send them the link to the blog and tell them that you support the message behind this blog.
Every adult in a position of power and privilege needs to be talking about the topic of a chronic, underfunded, toxic education system functioning in scarcity. Lowest funding in all of Canada. By human design. Completely illogical.
BCEdAccess Society 