AMHERST – Parents of special needs children are rallying to block to possible cut of educational assistants by the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board.
The Nova Scotia Government Employees Union, representing educational assistants in the board, is holding a meeting with parents and EAs on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., at the Lions Club in Amherst to address the impact of the cut of up to 66 positions across the board.
“We have been told there could be up to 66 educational assistants who will not be rehired by the board in the fall, and that is unacceptable,” NSGEU president Joan Jessome said Friday.
“EAs play an important role in the life of a student with special needs. Every one of those EAs that is not being rehired represents one child or more who will not have the support they need when they return to school in the fall.”
Jessome said parents have every right to know what resources will be in place for their children in September. Some parents don’t find out what resources they will have available until just before the first day of school, she added.
Other meetings are planned for Truro and Stellarton.
“What I’m hearing from parents is they want their children to have some quality of school life so they will have a quality of adult life,” Jessome said.
“We’re taking this on as a social issue and bring some awareness to it.”
Tammy Chapman, chair of the Piece By Piece Autism Association, feels the cuts will be devastating to the students with special needs.
One of the group’s frustrations is no one really knows what’s going on.
“It’s pretty bad when we don’t know who has made this call because the school board has to answer to someone,” she said, adding no one knows exactly what schools are losing EAs and how many they are losing. “Who are they answering to?”
She said the fear of her son entering school without an EA is overwhelming and she believes it’s a feeling many parents are experiencing.
“It terrifies me because we don’t know how he’ll react in a school setting. Now, just thinking he may have to be placed in a place where he’s left on his own is beyond scary,” she said. “My son doesn’t have a big vocabulary and the thought of him going to school where no one knows what he’s trying to say is concerning to say the least, if not terrifying.”
Barb Coleman, whose 14-year-old son is entering Grade 10 at Springhill High, does not believe he will function without an EA.
“This will be the end for him, he will not graduate,” said Coleman, whose son has been assisted by an EA since he was in Grade 2. “I haven’t been informed he won’t have an aide, but if he doesn’t have one he won’t be able to understand what’s being taught to him. He hears only about three-quarters of what’s being told to him. That’s all he can process.”
Board superintendent Noel Hurley said the issue goes back to negotiations last year with the NSGEU. At the time, the union requested an increase in the work day to five-and-a-half hours from five.
“At the time, we told them that with a status quo budget that some positions would be in peril. We would have to reduce the number of employees we have to make our budget balance,” Hurley said, adding the board has put $225,000 in one-time funding into the budget to cushion the blow. “We’ve done that to try and lessen the impact on this change in hours of the EAs.”
He said the reduction will be the equivalent of 33 positions as opposed to the number suggested by the NSGEU.
Hurley also said any special needs child that needs an EA will have one.
Jessome said EAs have worked for five-and-a-half hours but only got paid for five hours.
“We just wanted our EAs to be paid the same as others across the province, but not to the point where they’re going to start laying them off. That’s counterproductive,” she said.

dcole@amherstdaily.com