Ministry's new plan for educational assistants won't do, says Yukon teachers' union

The Yukon education minister's planned changes to how educational assistants (EAs) are assigned and distributed in schools will cause harm to students and weren't made with the necessary input from those affected, according to a chorus of education advocates.

Ted Hupé, president of the Yukon Association of Education Professionals (YAEP), says the new process is a dramatic change and means EAs will no longer be assigned to support specific students based on their needs. 

"The process announced by the department is bureaucratically simple: one EA per class for primary grades," he said.

"Students this year that are getting support would not be eligible for support next year if this allocation process and rubric is used."

EAs, who are represented by the YAEP, work in schools across the territory assisting students who need more individual support than a teacher can provide when it comes to learning, behavioural management and personal care during the school day.

Hupé shared a copy of the department of education's new forms that schools must fill out to apply for EAs for the 2024/2025 school year. At a glance, they show that one EA will be assigned to every class from kindergarten through Grade 4, and that additional EAs will be assigned to individual students if they need more than what the classroom's one EA can provide. And, student need is determined by a new rubric that evaluates a student's abilities, and gives them a score.

But Hupé says in practice this new system doesn't work. Under the new rubric students who've been eligible for one-to-one EAs this year, don't score high enough to get their own EA next year, he said.

"I have not had one school yet contact me and say that the rubric works ... They put in the details of kids that currently get EA support and they do not qualify for support next year using ... the new rubric."

YAEP isn't the only organization taking issue with the plans. 

In a joint letter to Education Minister Jeanie McLean, several organizations — YAEP, LDAY Centre for Learning, Autism Yukon, Yukon First Nations Education Directorate, and Association of Yukon School Councils, Boards & Committees — took issue with the fact that they're not being listened to despite representing the needs of many students.

Specifically, they're concerned that the new criteria to evaluate students means vulnerable learners will fall through the cracks. They also say the plan to allocate EAs to classrooms, rather than specific students "will potentially result in a significant reduction in service."

"This arbitrary base formulaic approach perpetuates inequity because it prevents administrators from most effectively aligning limited EA resources with the student learning and educational needs unique to each school," the letter reads.

Furthermore, they say the department of education has "unilaterally revised" the 2016 EA allocation process, which was developed collaboratively through public consultation.

Hupé says that over the past year his union and the other groups participated in a consultation process with the government about how EAs are allocated, but the department has now made changes to the system, before the report from the consultation has been released.