. If we are serious about wanting to diversify leaders in our society, we should be supporting programs like IB which have been shown to develop leaders of diverse backgrounds.

Integration of students with special needs isn’t working, because the students have little to no support in the regular classroom; they cannot cope. One special education teacher can’t be in 8 classrooms at once, so the children each receive very few minutes of extra help. We used to give targeted help to small groups of students, pulled from several regular classes at the same time, which was far more effective.

I filled out my 13th violent workplace incident report today. I teach a "regular" Grade 1/2 class. One student "interrupted" another student by talking to his friend, which caused my student to violently attack the "interrupter."

Over the last three years, I’ve had injuries in class which ranged from a torn shoulder to a damaged knee cap from managing a class of students ranging from ages 4 to 8. I am a single parent, and I can no longer enjoy the physical activities that I used to be able to do with my own children.

I have seen many unpleasant changes in my 20+ years as an elementary grade teacher. Class sizes have gotten bigger and bigger, while the classroom’s themselves have stayed the same size, making for a cramped and unpleasant working environment.

I have been a teacher for over 20 years. I used to love my job, but lately, the increasing violence, lack of respect and discipline, plus the board and ministry mandates have made teaching very difficult. I'm counting down until retirement.

I have been a teacher for over 20 years. I used to love my job, but lately, the increasing violence, lack of respect and discipline, plus the board and ministry mandates have made teaching very difficult. I'm counting down until retirement.

Funding at ours schools is directly linked to student success. Poverty affects many of our students, and school funding can alleviate these issues. Funding can provide school breakfasts and even school lunches, for underprivileged students. A hungry child is not a good student.

Our school is mostly populated by new immigrant families and those who do not speak English as their first language, meaning many parents don’t have the ability to advocate as strongly as they want to for their children. Their voices go unheard and teachers’ voices simply get ignored.

After the first two months of the school year, our board placed so many new students in my program that it became impossible to teach the curriculum anymore.

What the parents don’t know, is that the physical building is falling apart. The paint on my ceiling chips off in large chunks daily and lands on my students’ heads, and the hallways and stairwells are filthy dirty and have dangerous chipped tiles on the floor.

When we ask for support for our students we are told to do more to meet their needs ourselves. This is extremely stressful - and the teacher burn out is evidence of this stress.

The situation with the library is really due to understaffing, which has resulted in the doors remaining locked.

I'm so sad that the class size for those students needing one-on-one increased to 27 for one destreamed class, from their previous smaller class sizes.

After de-streaming along with program cuts, students were suddenly expected to handle a more challenging curriculum without supports from Education Assistants or smaller class sizes.