NSGEU plans to attend school board meeting to voice opposition to cuts

(Editor's Note: Haligonia.ca will have LIVE streaming coverage of the HRSB meeting tomorrow, January 26 on our front page starting at 6pm.)

Press Release:
NSGEU (Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union) members and representatives – including union president Joan Jessome – are planning to attend the Halifax Regional School Board’s (HRSB) meeting on Wednesday, Jan 26 to voice their strong opposition to any cuts to school board funding that would hurt our children’s education.

“We all know the saying that it takes an entire village to raise a child,” says Jessome. “In the same way, it takes an entire team to educate a child.”

The NSGEU represents more than 500 people who do work for HRSB in a variety of positions, including secretaries, clerks, bus drivers, bus monitors, and mechanics. Every day, they help maintain a safe and stable learning environment for the school board’s 51,000 students.

Their work is crucial. If they weren’t doing it, somebody else would have to, taking away from the individual support and encouragement that students depend on.

Jessome points out that Nova Scotia already has among the lowest per-student P-12 education funding of all Canadian provinces.

Cutting that funding even further will have consequences not just for today’s students, but also for all Nova Scotians in the form of increased health-care and social-services costs down the road. “Any cuts are too many,” says Jessome.

The HRSB meeting gets underway at 6pm on Jan. 26 at the HRSB’s office at 33 Spectacle Lake Drive in Dartmouth.