A delegation of union members representing special education assistants turned up at a recent board of education meeting urging the school board to pay for an extra 45 minutes a week - not the proposed 30 minutes - which they say is necessary to meet the demands of their job.
But the timing isn't good, given that the district is dealing with a "surprise" $2.8-million deficit from last year's budget.
Still, trustee Jonina Campbell said the school district must ensure that the deficit recovery is not "on the backs of special needs students."
"Money is the problem," said Campbell, who is a teacher in Richmond. "We are going to have to find ways around this. Unfortunately, there's not enough money in education to do the great things we want to do."
Marcel Marsolais, president of CUPE local 409, is lobbying the district to extend the working hours for student support staff, including special education assistants, who work with students with mental and physical challenges.
"We are very concerned that there's just not enough time to get the work done," Marsoalis told the board.
The union wants 45 extra minutes a week, but the district has agreed to 30 minutes.
In this year's budget, the district is receiving almost three-quarters of a million dollars of funding through the Learning Improvement Fund from Bill 22, called the Education Improvement Act, which was introduced during the ongoing teachers' strike. The school district can use the extra funding to hire additional staff or extend hours to meet the needs of students.
Tom McKean, a special education assistant at New Westminster Secondary School, said the issue is affecting staff morale.
"It's not just this issue of the 45 minutes, it's a whole accumulative thing that basically depresses people," he said. "They feel like they don't count."
McKean said a teacher told him that there was an email that said special education assistants would no longer be invited to students' individual education plans "because there is no money to pay them."
Trustee Lisa Graham, whose son was a special needs student at NWSS, said she was "shocked" to hear about the individual education plan meetings and also noted the chronic underfunding of special needs.
"It doesn't matter who's in Victoria, in my experience," Graham said.
