Re: “Special-needs students treated shamefully,” editorial, Feb. 15.
As a teacher of more than three decades in the Greater Victoria School District, I take exception to the suggestion in this editorial that the recently restored contract language is somehow to blame for the lack of educational assistants.
While additional educational assistants would be welcome members of any educational team, the missed issue at the heart of this editorial is that there are not enough replacement educational assistants available for those who might be away.
Recently, a special-needs child was asked to stay home because the regular educational assistants who worked with the child were away and not replaced. The district has had difficulty attracting enough people to be available as replacements.
As the Greater Victoria School District’s Colin Roberts said in a Times Colonist story on Feb. 8, “We’ve been hiring as quickly as we can. It is a struggle for us to keep pace and to find enough qualified people.”
This is not a new problem, and the recently restored contract language is not the cause of this shortage. I have seen over the past 30 years many times when replacement education assistants were not available.
Perhaps the real root of the problem is exactly what Roberts said. The school district says it is hiring these skilled people as fast as it can, but it is difficult for school districts to find qualified people to do this demanding and important job.
Mitchell Barnes
Victoria
