Educational Assistants voice concerns over impactful cut to working hours

A group of Educational Assistants from across the Chinook School Division expressed their concerns regarding a reduction of hours which will impact their status as full-time employees.

A delegation of over 30 EA’S attended the April 11 Chinook School Board meeting to share the realities that the cut will have on their positions. The Chinook School Division has informed parents and school staff that they intend to cut 20 teaching positions and reduce Educational Assistant hours by 30 minutes a day.

The delegation expressed that they were “absolutely in shock as well as devastated by the contents of the recent budget”.

They argue the reduction in hours will result in a 10 per cent cut to their wages, with each full time Educational Assistant being hit with a reduction of approximately $2,395 per year.

“To a person who earns over $100,000 a year this might not seem like much of a sacrifice, but to those of us who barely earn $30,000 it is a great deal of money,” explained Heather Fisher, an Educational Assistant at the Swift Current Comprehensive High School since 2000.

“The other realization that comes with this decision is that we will no longer be deemed full time employee,” she said, with the cut to 27.5 hour per week dropping them below the Saskatchewan Labour Standards requirement of 30 hours per week.

With the impact to students as a result of the 30 minute per day cut, they are disappointed that this cut will have a direct impact in the classroom.

“We are very concerned that our students will pay the price for this cost savings decision.”

“This so called money saving decision has left the Educational Assistants of the Chinook School Division feeling unappreciated, undervalues and unimportant by both the Board and the Division,” Fisher added.

Carlin Lee, who has worked as an Educational Assistant for the past 15 years, currently with O.M. Irwin School, said that public education is supposed to be a human-based service, not a for-profit business.

“Not one EA provides a generalized or generic services. This is because our students are not generic, rather they are each unique individuals,” Lee explained. “EAS are responsible for anything from feeding tubes, to tilting, to behaviour, to assisting with Trigonometry or writing an essay, but most importantly developing relationship with the students.”

Additionally, the impact on the Educational Assistants has been significant since the plan was released back on March 30.

“The mental health and well-being of our students is of the utmost importance, but somewhere in the decision making process our mental health and well-being has been forgotten.”

Lee added that many Educational Assistants are the sole income earners in their households, and the change in their employment status will also impact their vacation pay, the possibility of losing their benefits, and increase the years of work in order to quality for retirement.

“These cuts will also deter anyone from pursuing a career as an Educational Assistant,” she said. “The job of an EA is mentally and/or physically and emotionally exhausting. Most of us do this job because we enjoy working with our students and love being a part of the education system. But not being able to afford to live will play a huge part in our decisions moving forward.”

Chinook School Division Board of Education chair Kim Pridmore explained after the April 11 delegation that the decisions have been prompted by years of underfunding by the provincial government.

“It goes back to several years of consistent under funding. And when there’s no recognition of the inflationary costs, and then that continues year after year it has that compounding effect. Now we’re at a place, where over the years we’ve tried to keep those reductions out of the classroom, and we’re no longer able to do that. So this gets us to 2022-2023 where we have to take the cuts out of the classroom,” Pridmore said.

Pridmore noted that the provincial budget delivered what ends up being a 0.7 per cent increase from last year’s funding total, which does not cover inflationary costs and other necessary budgetary items.

“Again the trouble is we’re so far behind now. And they’re so far behind with every school division in the province that the idea of catching up is almost insurmountable. And again it’s the compounding of not covering things in that year one, or whatever year you want to start as a baseline. Its just been a compounding effect. Some divisions did see an increase in the 2.0 to 2.5. I’m sure they had just as many challenges as we did. And it’s very possible that they’re still operating at a deficit. But to us the .7 is just not enough an investment in education to really give us anything to work with.”

She noted that the board opted not to cut entire EA positions and instead opted for the hourly reduction.

“We were faced with I guess a couple of alternatives there. One was potentially cutting EA positions. Entire positions. And the other was to reduce hours for every EA. And I guess at our table everyone in the room, contrary to what they feel I know, the fact is we do value every one so much that we didn’t want any of them so much that we didn’t want any of them to go home without a job. We know that there’s schools across our division that cannot be without an EA. They just cannot. And we know that there’s individual students that can’t be without EAS.”

“And so we hoped that by reducing the hours it wouldn’t put anyone in such a position of hardship that they would have to consider leaving their job.”

She explained that the cuts are similar to what other divisions have had to endure, and is hoping that students will not experience the impact of the cuts.

“We know that other school divisions in the province have gone to that five and half or a 5.6 hour day. So one thing that we should note is any students that require that one-on-one supervision we’re not taking that away. It’s strictly from the kind of before and after, before students get to school or after they leave or whatever, that we were hoping again to not see quite the impact in the classroom with students. But we certainly know that it does impact the day.”

Pridmore also noted during a media interview after the delegation that they had not had an opportunity to discuss the presentation as a board.

“I guess I can’t say that the decision will change at this point because we went straight from the delegation into open session. So we will debrief now. So I would be hesitant to make any commitment that the decision will change, but that’s the conversation we have yet to have.”