Public secondary school teachers and support staff took to the picket lines Wednesday, closing high schools throughout the Quinte region and across Ontario.

Picket lines went up at schools across the region, including Sir James Whitney School for the Deaf in Belleville with those on the picket lines stressing the need to protect the province’s “world class education system” from the cuts proposed by the province.

The picketers were protesting what they say has been a lack of serious movement by the Ontario government on key issues during negotiations of a new agreement between the OSSTF and the province.

Andrew Walker, a science teacher at Centennial Secondary School, said among the issues of concern for the teachers are the dramatic increases in class sizes and forcing students to take e-classes.

“Both of those we feel are detrimental to our students’ education and also in the long term detrimental to the province of Ontario,” he said. “So we are standing up for what we think is right for education and what we think is right for education for the students of Ontario.”

"The message we're trying to send to both the government of Ontario and also the parents and everybody in the province of Ontario is we want to let them know what cuts the government has proposed for our students and our education system," Walker added.

Besides teachers, support workers on strike included child youth workers, social workers, speech language pathologists, applied behaviour analyst co-ordinators, attendance counsellors and board certified behaviour analysts.

Carol Hunton, a teacher and strike captain at Sir James Whitney School, said changes the government is proposing would most impact the most vulnerable children in the system who need the most support.

“We are protecting our public education system here in Ontario,” she said. “It’s world renowned and we want to keep it that way.”

Hunton acknowledged that as part of the negotiations the teachers are also looking for “reasonable and fair compensation that matches the rate of inflation.”