The education system is in critical condition. After decades of chronic underfunding and COVID, we still haven’t recovered. The lower-hanging fruit on the tree was picked years ago. There is nothing left. So now we need to go deeper into – and higher up into – the tree.
What does that actually mean? What does that look like day to day?
It means districts are closing programs that support equitable learning for children who are neurodivergent, like CORE in Vancouver, MACC in Burnaby, learning centres in Surrey, etc. It also means education assistants (EAs) who are retiring or leaving are not being replaced. Surrey is expecting not to replace 50 EAs. (Media article – That’s not inclusive education.) New Westminster is looking to cut 20 EA roles.
These program cuts are devastating. They connect students. They help students realize they aren’t alone in the world and that there are other kids who are just like them. That is worth a million dollars. To see yourself mirrored in someone else is priceless. It can be lifesaving.
We have a few issues. The Ministry of Education does not allow school districts to categorize portable costs as capital expenses; they only allow them to be operational. Portables cost are close to $250,000 each for a new portal with installation. School districts receive funding from the Ministry for operational costs based on the number of students who attend and the designations of students with disabilities. So, if you are a parent with a child who has a funded designation – which all parents would love to have, by the way – your child’s support money could potentially be part of purchasing a new portable. A parent from the district has reported to us that Surrey spent around $7 million dollars just moving portables last year.
EAs are already being assigned to multiple students in various classrooms. So when one EA role is cut, the impact is on multiple students.
Please keep in mind that after a day of supporting students at school, many EAs are also parents – and many are parents of kids with disabilities. I was one of those parents, and I have to say, it was exhausting. You give everything at work, and then your transition time is travelling from work to home to start your second shift. I had to leave my EA role because I felt completely depleted at the end of the workday, and I didn’t have enough left to give to my kids. So I transitioned to an office role. I already had the background to make that possible – not something available to everyone. What a difference it made. For a while…
I had a conversation with an EA a couple of years ago who had been working in the field for 30+ years, and she said the mental health of children since COVID is scary. She said to me, “I know this is going to sound horrible, but I don’t want grandchildren. I don’t want my grandbabies entering the school system.” I said to her, “Don’t feel bad. I feel exactly the same.” And I meant it. Everyone in our family is neurodivergent. I feel like I barely got my kids through this system. I don’t know that I have the capacity to support my grandchildren. How brutal is that?
If you’re a parent and you feel like that conversation is a little bit much, and I’m being a little extreme, then you truly do not know what classrooms are like nowadays. Children are mirrors of how our society is functioning. It’s pretty clear: as a society, we are struggling. Some school areas are struggling more than others, but kids with disabilities are being pushed out of the system, and people are being traumatized across the province – staff included.
Budgets are a hot topic right now. Parents who weren’t paying attention to budgets before are suddenly getting a slap of reality. Their kids’ band and school trips are being cancelled. If you are a parent of a child with a disability or diverse ability, you have most likely been struggling with advocacy for years, trying to grasp every resource you can for your child – and there just isn’t enough. Exclusion is high, and the Ombudsperson is launching a formal investigation. We cannot express our gratitude enough. It has felt like the Titanic has been sinking, and everyone up to this point has been checking to see if there’s lead in the paint and if the doorknobs are still working. Great. Meanwhile, the Titanic continues to sink.
Parents have been pulling their kids out of brick-and-mortar schools and enrolling them in online options as a way to toss their children onto a lifeboat. Realizing there were no other options, many have left. Many parents, unable to work, are racking up their credit cards to pay for food, wondering how they will pay rent. Single mothers with a child facing exclusion – what are they supposed to do? Tell me. How are they supposed to live? On disability? Funded by the government? Legislated poverty. How does that make logical sense? People in our Facebook group post about these issues.
I have had parents in various professions call me. They tell me how nervous they are about making a mistake at work because they work in pharmacies counting pills, as nurses giving medications, or as front-line emergency staff. They are so preoccupied mentally – constantly thinking about their child’s education problems – and they are lacking so much sleep because of the stress. They are barely hanging on. They love their jobs and don’t want to leave, but they are terrified of making a mistake. This is good for society?
My husband had someone new start at his work a couple of years ago. They came from the USA. They lasted in Canada for a month. They moved back to the States because their son is Autistic and he gets more support in the U.S. than he did in Canada. The difference was such a shock to this family. This person was a rockstar in their profession, but they couldn’t stay here. So they left.
Here are a list of some of the tasks that parents are reporting their child need EAs for:
Scribe support, note taking, pull out academic support for kids with learning disabilities
– Communication (Signing EAs for Deaf/Hard-of-hearing/Deaf-Blind students, using communication boards and pic symbols, implementing communication programs designed by SLPs)
– Support for accessing washrooms and other physical and medical needs
– Safety – eloping, medical reasons, supervision at lunch for all children
– Supervision – for everything required to keep a child physically, mentally and emotionally safe
– Emotional regulation – co-regulation, de-escalation
– Facilitating communication and socialization between the student and their peers
– Implementation of academic strategies in elementary – if students are lucky
– Chunking and breaking down work; support for academics in high schools
– Sensory breaks – if these didn’t happen, some kids would not be able to be in school
– Braille translation
– Supervision of movement breaks
– Anxiety management
– Reading support
– Math support
– Social support
Remove the adult, and none of this would be possible, which means many kids would not be able to physically attend school.
AND – I would like to add that there is a whole host of things that EAs do every day that are not part of their job. They are filling the holes in the system. Lots of things land in their lap, and they are doing them because – if not them, then who?
Here are some things that parents from our Facebook group have commented that their child needs an EA for:
“Without EA’s, my daughter wouldn’t be able to go to public school. She would have to be home and isolated from friends, as kids who had Type 1 Diabetes before her did. Our EA’s take on enormous responsibility with a steep learning curve. Without their courage, their understanding, and their patience- we’d have no alternative. Like parents do at their child’s diagnosis, EA’s suddenly become nurses (with no degree or pay to reflect this) and they’re suddenly doing medical therapies they likely never thought they’d have to do. Kids with Type 1 often have medical emergencies at school, where acting fast and knowing what to do is very key to the child’s survival. They’re being asked to provide injections of a very potent medicine into kids, to stab their little fingers to read their blood sugars, to learn to count carbohydrates and how to calculate insulin doses. They’re being asked to create routine in one of the most chaotic environments possible, and they manage to make it work. These EA’s are also helping kids cope with the emotional backpack they’ll forever have to carry, which allows them to just be kids for a while, without worrying about taking on this burden of care while at school. EA’s don’t ever seem to get the recognition from their employers on how important they are to children in their care – they’re keeping them alive! There isn’t enough wine & chocolates in the world that I could buy them to thank them for everything they do for us. ” – Anonymous parent
“My son requires access to sensory room daily. It is in his IEP. This year it took until November to get an EA available to be able to give him and another student in his class access to sensory room daily.” – Anonymous parent
“EA support was pulled in January 2025 when EA left the district and has not been replaced. My son requires access scribe support. It’s in his IEP. Teacher is unable to accommodate being regular scribe and there is no EA available for his classroom. This means he cannot complete or participate in classroom work.” – Anonymous parent
“Son was referred to Gifted enrichment program. He requires EA support to attend. Including access to scribe. There is no EA support available for this program and so he could not participate this year.” – Anonymous parent
“My kids have stopped attending school but the only way they were able to attend was with one-to-one EA support. They needed someone to greet them and help them find their way in and get settled, and they needed the co-regulation and the option to leave the room as needed with a safe and trusted adult.” – Anonymous parent
“If my kiddo didn’t have his full time EA’s he wouldn’t be going to public school period. They help him achieve his best every day he’s at school, through good and difficult times. They help with him being able to stay in the classroom, they help with scribing , helping with social situations on the playground, so much that they do.” – Anonymous parent
“My son is in gr 5 and at a gr 1 reading / writing level.. EAs are essential in assisting with academics, breaking down the questions, scribing. Helping organize thoughts with and putting it onto paper, clarifying instruction, engaging/ encouraging social encounters with peers.” – Anonymous parent
“My son grade 6, has a lot of safety concerns, Constantly needs reminders as he likes to feel certain texture in his mouth, he forget to wash his hands after using the washroom, He has few words, but he doesn’t ask for help, or request for food and water, without 1:1 support, he will be completely lost.” – Anonymous parent
“Our morning transition can be very challenging, with heightened anxiety and often school refusal. EA support for transition help from the parking lot into the school can mean the difference between attending or not”. – Anonymous parent
“EAs are 100% essential to both my sons attending school and learning. One who uses a wheelchair and has low vision and nonspeaking – his EAs need to help with everything, help him be included, and adapt learning to his needs. There is no way a classroom teacher could do that – and the rest of their job. My other guy has behaviour concerns that require at least 1:2 support and without EA support, I know he would be suspended or otherwise excluded from school. My kids’ EAs are the reason they are learning and thriving at school- it’s an absolutely essential job… legally essential to provide an equitable education! Plus – peace of mind for me because I trust our EAs so I can carry on with my workday knowing my kids are in good hands. We need MORE EAs and give em all a big fat raise too!” – Anonymous parent
“We had a huge cuts last year in our district and the school I primarily work at has 90 IEP‘s and eight education assistance. My son who is one to one was not getting his work done at school because of “staffing breaks, and not enough coverage“ the shortage also resulted in the school, not loading his AAC device with appropriate vocabulary so he could participate in all his classes. So now we are doing academics at home and he is only going to brick and mortar part time. this week because of further shortages and looking into the future with more EA cuts, LRT‘s are actually giving children who are neurodivergent the choice of support or suggesting to the students they can do it on their own. these students technically are given the choice of whether or not they won’t support if they choose not to have support. These are kids that will do nothing and likely learn nothing without having support.” – Anonymous Parent
EAs play a very important role. Our children need EAs who are properly trained—not just a two-week program. That is nowhere near enough. We need EA standards. We need EAs to receive the training, investment, and respect that their profession deserves. They are professionals.
Every child has a human right to access an equitable education. This is supported by legislation and case law. The law needs to be applied and upheld – absorbed by the system – in order for it to be enforced and acted upon. Children who are neurodivergent should not have their programs cut first. They are not the lower-hanging fruit.
David Eby made an election promise for an EA in every class from Kindergarten to grade 3. How does the provincial government plan on implementing this and when?
BCEdAccess is placing a call out for human rights lawyers. We are looking to expand a referral list for parents. This is where we are. With no options left, we need to use external complaint systems to enforce our children’s rights. Class action human rights complaints are being considered.
Parents took the Ministry of Education in Alberta to court. The EAs were on strike.
Kerber v Alberta, 2025 ABKB 98
[152] The Charter guarantees equal access to education for all students; the corollary effect is that the equitable principle must be applied in times of labour or resource shortages. Here, what is apparent is that there was no consideration of how the reduced resources could be redistributed among all students. It was assumed that minimal disruption to the system would result by targeting only a subset of students – those who use an EA. However, this approach failed to consider that non-disabled students might suffer the least amount of harm since they do not have the same disadvantages as the students with disabilities and could adapt to an at-home learning program more easily, i.e., some non-disabled students switch to at-home learning to free up more resources for complex-needs students, or some of them, to attend school in-person even with the EAs presently unavailable.
EQUITABLE PRINCIPLES MUST BE APPLIED IN TIMES OF LABOUR OR RESOURCE SHORTAGES.
So this tells us: whatever the resources are that are being handed out by the government, they must be equitably distributed.
We know from The Student (by the parent) v. The School District, 2025 BCHRT 17
Not having an EA can be an accepted human rights complaint.
So…we can see from these cases we have protections in place under the Human Rights Code and the Charter that apply to access to EAs in education.
If there are any lawyers who would like to be added to our referral list, please contact BCEdAccess at secretary@bcedaccess.com (Please add our email address as a contact so that our response to you does not go in your spam).
Please reach out to BCEdAccess and let us know. We are always actively seeking consultation and advisory services.
