Over 300 support staff at St. Albert schools will be out of a job this month due to provincial cuts, say local superintendents, and parents are concerned about what that will mean for their kids’ education.
As previously reported, Alberta Education Minister Adriana LaGrange has diverted $128 million from school funding toward the province’s coronavirus response while in-school classes were cancelled.
The Greater St. Albert Catholic and St. Albert Public school boards confirmed this week about 309 people would be laid off as a result of the cuts.
Catholic board superintendent David Keohane said the province removed $801,000 from his board’s budget. Some 116 support staffers will be laid off by April 30 as a result – an incredibly difficult decision to make.
“These are super-important people to our (education) system that do amazing work every day,” he said.
St. Albert Public took a $1.2-million hit from the cuts, said superintendent Krimsen Sumners – one it could not offset with reserves, having already tapped them to avoid the layoffs caused by last fall’s budget reductions. Some 24 support staffers took voluntary layoffs, and another 169 will be off the job as of April 30.
These are educational assistants, library technicians, therapists and other specialists who worked with many teachers and coached individuals and small groups online, Sumners said.
“We are losing part of our St. Albert Public family, and that’s devastating for everybody,” she said.
Sturgeon Public superintendent Mary Lynne Campbell said her board had laid off the equivalent of 83 full-time positions.
Education impacts
Parent Sarah Muldoon said her daughter Anya used to work one-on-one with an educational assistant in French Immersion kindergarten at Muriel Martin – an important support, as Anya has challenges with fine motor skills.
That aide got laid off after spring break. Now, it’s up to her to keep her daughter on-task during online lessons – not an easy job when you don’t know French.
“(Anya’s) favourite person is her EA,” Muldoon said.
“Her learning experience is really dependent on having that help.”
Kristi Rouse’s son Nathan has autism and is in Grade 5, and she said his EA has been a great help in helping him adapt to online learning. Last week, she learned the EA was being laid off at the end of the month, and was training another teacher to take their place.
“Kids who are autistic have a really hard time transitioning,” Rouse said, and the school closure was already a big change for Nathan.
Rouse said she wasn’t sure how Nathan would handle this latest change to his routine, but said it would likely add to his stress.
“We’re just taking it one day at a time.”
Educational assistants are providing important one-on-one support for students with disabilities while classrooms are closed, often connecting with them several times a day, said Trish Bowman of Inclusion Alberta. Without those assistants, it’s up to parents to provide that support.
“For a lot of kids, their routine is really critical,” Bowman said, and the loss of these assistants could set them back significantly at school.
While this recent round of cuts is supposed to be temporary, Sumners said it was likely that some of these layoffs will become permanent when the province shifts to its new school-funding model this fall.
“We will be losing some of these folks.”
While she understood that everyone needs to make sacrifices during this time, Rouse said she wished the province and local school boards had worked together to avoid these cuts as some other boards have done.
“These were positions that were still directly working with students, and these are the students that need the most help.”
