Canada’s public schools are still struggling to recover from COVID. I know this from experience. My daughter is in the Toronto public school system, the largest in the country, which had a massive teacher exodus over the last few years. Its schools are now painfully short-staffed.
The principal at my daughter’s elementary school was transferred to another school at the end of last year. No replacement has been found. The school yanked in a retired principal to run the school for a few months. Then she left. Now the vice-principal just does both her job and the principal’s job. No wonder there’s widespread burnout.
Schools now desperately need educational assistants, or EAs, who work with the most vulnerable, high-needs students in the school system, kids with developmental delays, learning disabilities and other challenges. Over the last few decades, these high-needs kids have been integrated into the mainstream school system—which only works when they have staff support. But many EAs quit during the pandemic. Recruiting new ones has been hard.
Keira Major worked as an EA for 21 years in Hamilton schools. For Maclean’s, she describes her love of the work but how, over many years of school board budget cuts and staff shortages, her job became so stressful—and dangerous—that she decided to leave the profession.
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
