NDP demands support for educational assistants

By Lethbridge Herald on January 11, 2025.

With threats of strike action from school support workers escalating across the province, the Alberta NDP is calling on the UCP government to properly fund public education, ensuring school support staff receive fair wages for their critical work, and that every child has access to the quality education they deserve.

Many school support workers across Alberta have not seen a wages increase in 10 years, said Rakhi Pancholi, NDP deputy leader, during a news conference in Edmonton.

“The average annual salary for a school support worker in Alberta is just over $34,000 per year,” said Pancholi. “The UCP government’s failure to properly fund our public schools has resulted in many support staff having to two or even three jobs to make ends meet.”

She said Danielle Smith and the UCP are choosing to fund education at the lowest level per student in the country, forcing school boards to rapidly drain their reserves just to keep the classroom lights on.

On Thursday, more than 3,000 educational support staff at Edmonton Public School Board and more than 200 at the Sturgeon Public School Division served a 72-hour strike notice. School support workers in Fort McMurray began rotating strikes in November and this week that strike action expanded to all support staff at Fort McMurray Public and Catholic school districts who will stay off the job until a contract is settled.

“The UCP wants Albertans to believe that this is a school board issue, but they know full well that a properly funded education system in Alberta would mean more money on the table to (educational assistants), better supports for teachers, parents and students and ultimately a brighter future for our children.”

She added that, while failing to support Alberta workers to have a living wage, the UCP decided Thursday to once again put their own interests above every other Albertan by announcing they were increasing pay and benefits for MLAs and boosting their own caucus’ budget.

“At a time when we are hearing from teachers who are overburdened to an unmanageable classroom sizes, when EAs are leaving the field because they can’t make a living in their chosen profession, that’s when the UCP decide that they themselves deserve more,” said Pancholi.

She said it’s unconscionable for the UCP government to continue to underfund education and allow EAs to not be adequately compensated for the important and demanding work they do to ensure that all of kids have access to the education they need and deserve.

“We can’t let the UCP get away with blaming either the shockingly underpaid workers or the most underfunded school boards in the country for this situation. This is a problem they created. They must be held accountable for their continued attacks on public education.”

She said Albertans are suffering from these actions including teachers, education workers, parents and most importantly the children.

“That’s why we are here today, to show the real-world consequences of the UCP government’s negligence and what this means for Albertans,” said Pancholi.

Pancholi accused the UCP of undermining the bargaining process by stepping in when it shouldn’t. She said that when it suits the government, they weigh in and they do things like defer the negotiations that dispute the inquiry board. When it doesn’t suit them, they say it is the school boards’ responsibility.

“I think Albertans, parents, education workers deserve to know that the provincial government is the one that is holding all the power right now, so they’re disrespecting the negotiation process that those unions and workers are rightfully engaged in by putting their finger on the scale,” said Pancholi.

Marie Renaud, NDP Shadow Minister for Community and Social Services, said people with disabilities are frequently a target of the UCP government, which has become a pattern.

“We know that adjacent support for children with disabilities like FSCD, which is Family Supports for Children with Disabilities, are underfunded and oversubscribed to the point where there are thousands waiting to be assessed while thousands more have been approved and sit on wait lists,” said Renaud.

She added that the adjacent crisis is adding to the current educational pressures and that means school EAs are even more vital.

“Thousands of kids and families are negatively and dangerously impacted by this government’s failure to meet their educational needs,” said Renaud.

“When kids aren’t properly supported in the classroom the parents get called, they get sent home and that’s unfair. That can’t be allowed to continue.”

She said that growing financial burdens, coupled with unmet disability support needs, is leading to families collapsing under the pressure.

“EAs are game changers for students and teachers and without them equity in education is impossible, it can’t even be an aspirational goal. Alberta students, staff, families and education staff deserve respect, gratitude and fair pay,” said Renaud.