Education workers across the province are supporting strike action to back contract demands with the province and school boards.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees says 96.5 per cent of employees, gave their union the strike mandate.

President Laura Walton says 82 per cent of their members voted.

Wages and staffing levels are among the key issues, including;

enough educational assistants so all students would get the supports they need and so schools could stop sending kids home because there isn’t an EA available
an early childhood educator in every kindergarten classroom so every four- and five-year-old would get the play based learning support that’s especially necessary now after two years of pandemic isolation
enough library workers to make sure school libraries are open and reading opportunities are available to kids all the time
enough custodians to keep schools clean and enough maintenance workers and tradespeople to begin to tackle the $16 billion repair backlog
adequate staffing of secretaries in school offices and enough lunchroom supervisors to keep students safe

Negotiations between the two sides are to resume Thursday.

This is a developing story.