School is back in session, but one five-year-old boy in Nanaimo, B.C., is still at home waiting to find out when he can attend classes full time.
Daniel Gardner, who is blind and has epilepsy and autism, was set to start kindergarten alongside his peers with the help of an educational assistant (EA).
But he’s been denied his full-time start to learning after the school district said it was struggling to find qualified EAs.
It’s part of a wider problem of staff shortages in schools across the province, Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools says — but the union representing support staff says the problem lies with poor working conditions for EAs, including lack of work hours, which are either forcing many out of the job or putting off those considering it.
Daniel’s mom, Ashley Gardner, said she had been working with Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools since January to ensure her son would have a smooth transition into classes.
She said she had confirmed with the school district that her son would have an EA and someone on staff would be trained with her son’s emergency medication.
But Gardner said communication dropped off in August and, by the time she showed up for Daniel’s first day of school on Sept. 9, she found no arrangements had been made to accommodate him.
“It’s quite emotional for me, right? Because I put in so much effort to make sure he would be there and that he would be able to hit the ground running with his class,” Gardner said.
School is back in session, but not for all. One little boy in Nanaimo is still at home, and his mom is speaking out. She says support delays have kept her son out of school. As Claire Palmer reports, the local union says it’s a problem with how education assistants are managed.
The school district says the problem is the struggle to find qualified staff.
“While the district continues to actively recruit and train staff for our learners with diverse needs and disabilities, staffing shortages are impacting both public and private education, and other sectors, across the province,” it said in a statement.
In February, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation said the province’s K-12 system will need to hire 20,000 teachers and 7,000 teacher assistants over the next 10 years just to keep up with growing enrolment and replacing retiring staff.
EA shortages
When it comes to EAs, CUPE Local 606 — which represents support workers in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district 68 — says the problem lies with how they’re treated, leading to recruitment and retention issues.
In a statement last week, the union expressed concern over a decision by the school district to reduce the hours of a large portion of its EAs.
It said most of its EA members are working two or three jobs at the same time.
“We want to see some true investment in EAs,” said CUPE 606 president Jeff Virtanen.
“I know the [school] trustees were being told by senior management that, ‘Oh, we just have to hire more EAs.’ We’re trying to tell them there’s no more EAs. There’s no waiting list to get in here.”
The school district says a letter of understanding negotiated in 2022, in the last round of bargaining between CUPE and the district, sets out annual funding to support additional EA weekly hours for those working 25 hours a week or less.
The district had $167,133 outlined effective July 1, 2024, and annually going forward — a decrease from the $193,872 allocated for the year prior.
The district says it’s outside of its power to allot more funds to EAs outside of the existing framework, but said in a statement that it remains committed to adding additional hours for educational assistants within what’s available.
Gardner said the district offered to reallocate another child’s EA for two days a week to help Daniel — which she says isn’t enough.
She said Daniel was able to attend his first days of school on Sept. 19 and 20, but he won’t be able to attend again until Sept. 26, and there’s no indication when he’ll be able to attend full time.
Gardner says she’s now filed a formal complaint with the school district on the grounds that Daniel has not been involved in any action that would make it necessary for him to be excluded from attending school. She said she has yet to hear back.
“We’re all paying our taxes so that our children can have wonderful educations and participate in this world meaningfully,” she said.
“If we’ve gone into this and had eight months of planning and this is our situation, then what is it like for parents who don’t know their kids’ rights and don’t know how to access these resources and navigate the system?”