Our teachers and education assistants need backup, not applause

The gap has a number

The British Columbia Teachers' Federation reports that in 2023-24, government funding covered 72 per cent of what districts spent supporting students with disabilities and diverse abilities. Districts covered the remaining $340 million out of budgets meant for everything else. That is why a school can be told it has an inclusive-education allocation and still not have an education assistant in the room where one is needed.

In the BCTF's 2024-25 member survey of 4,070 teachers, underfunding and inadequate EA support were named directly as obstacles to meeting student needs. The 2025-26 survey of 4,423 teachers put recruitment, retention and workload at the centre again. This is not a handful of people complaining. It is the same finding, year after year.

An education assistant is not a nice-to-have. For some students, that one adult is the reason the school day works at all.

What the shortage looks like locally

The Sooke Teachers' Association runs a "failure to fill" reporting form, a way for members to log the days when no teacher-on-call could be found, or when a teacher had to be pulled from their own assignment to cover a gap. A district does not build a form like that unless the problem is routine.

I have seen both sides of this. I have seen what stable, committed staff do for a child over a full year. I have also seen what happens when a school has constant turnover: relationships get broken, the remaining staff absorb the load, and the students who need the most support lose the most.

I want to be careful here. SD62 does not publish a running count of education assistant vacancies or unfilled days, so I am not going to invent one. That absence is itself part of the problem, and something a board can fix.

What I will do about it

• Advocate to the Province, publicly and by name, for inclusive-education funding that matches what SD62 actually spends.
• Ask staff directly why they are leaving, through exit interviews and an anonymous annual survey of teachers, EAs and support staff, and publish the themes.
• Report retention and unfilled-coverage numbers publicly each year, so the conversation is about evidence rather than anecdote.
• Treat CUPE Local 459 and the Sooke Teachers' Association as the district's best source of early warning, not as an item on an agenda.

Stability is the whole argument

Every other goal a school district has depends on keeping good people. Curriculum, safety, achievement, reconciliation, mental health support, none of it survives constant turnover. If we want strong schools, we have to become a district that great teachers and education assistants choose to stay in.

That is what "stable" means on my sign. It is not a mood. It is a staffing plan.