Four-year-old Davis Cameron playing with his father Terry Graham. Cameron is unable to attend school all day because there are not enough educational assistants to take care of him. (TJ Dhir/CBC)
Tyler Campbell is the president of educational support staff for the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF).
He says the board is short anywhere between 30 and 40 EAs, and the shortage affects the mental health of the EAs that are there.
“Their mental health is deteriorating because they’re trying to stretch themselves out between working with the usual of two to three kids,” Campbell says. “Now, they’re working with up to 10 kids.
“The workload is extreme and they’re burning out quickly.”
All of this has an impact on the teachers, too, says the union representing elementary teachers.
“You’re trying to do more with the same amount of students, but not the staff that you’re used to having,” said Mario Spagnuolo, president of the Greater Essex branch of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario. “So the one-on-one attention might not be there that they need or are supposed to be receiving.”
Spagnuolo says this has also impacted the number of violent incidents in classrooms.
“When our support staff is not there…some students will exhibit behaviours that perhaps would not have been there if there was a support staff [member] in the room,” he said.
Provincial funding for school boards
A public letter from Ontario Minister of Education Stephen Lecce says they are providing record-level investments in the provincial system.
“Our government is providing more than $27 billion to school boards for the 2023-24 school year, including $700 million more in base education funding, and $180 million in a new strategy to boost literacy and math rates, supported by the hiring of 2,000 more educators,” Lecce says in the letter.
Lecce’s parliamentary assistant said they have and will continue to support students who need EAs.
“We have worked a lot better in the ministry to really work on supporting students, especially our most vulnerable students or students with special needs,” said Patrice Barnes.
“We continue to work with that and continue to advocate and to consult with the autism community to create programs that give the best supports for our kids.”
But Cameron says that for all the province’s funding, she hasn’t seen any improvement.