The start of the school year in Western Australia this week will be marred by strike action involving education department public servants protesting against job cuts.
More than 100 staff recently took voluntary redundancies.
The Community and Public Sector rejects Premier Mark McGowan's assurances there will not be hundreds of forced job losses in education to meet the wider target of 3000 cuts across the public service to repair a budget facing record debt.
The WA government's failure to get support in parliament for a mining gold royalty hike has led to tougher budget cuts, including a $41 million target for education.
The strike action will take place on Thursday when a rally will be held with schools opening for the year on Wednesday.
Despite the Labor government's recent backflip on plans to close the School of the Air and the Gifted and Talented programs, there were still hundreds of jobs on the line and the quality of education will be damaged, the CPSU and teachers' union say.
Aboriginal education staff and truancy support staff will still be cut.
Mr McGowan said he was urging unions to accept the government's offers of voluntary redundancies.
"We are putting more resources into the classroom and into schools and taking people out of those office jobs, head office and the like," he told reporters on Sunday.
The premier said his government had "done everything that you would think a union would want" by offering support for workers in getting new jobs.
The government announced on Sunday it would invest more than $55 million in three new primary schools in Baldivis, Banksia Grove and Caversham to cater for 1400 students and open over the next two years.
