The Huron Superior Catholic District School Board is planning to lay off as many as 74 educational assistants funded through Jordan’s Principle at the end of the school year.
CUPE 4148 president Crystal Krauter said it’s unclear if all of the positions will be cut, or if the school board will attempt to restructure some of the positions for the 2025-2026 academic year.
“This is extremely disheartening for all of the staff at HSCDSB and will be devastating for the students who rely on their support,” Krauter told SooToday in a statement.
“It will also have a critical impact on the educational assistants who are not funded through Jordan's Principal funding, as they will be left to assist these 74 students on top of their already impossible workload.”
The Catholic school board confirmed there will be a reduction in the number of educational assistant positions for the upcoming school year due to recent changes in funding from Indigenous Services Canada related to Jordan’s Principle.
All currently approved educational assistant applications for the 2024–2025 school year will remain in place until June 27 — but new or renewed requests for Jordan's Principle funding after that date will fall under new criteria.
Under new guidelines that went into effect April 1, educational assistant support that is considered an ‘enhancement’ to existing school board services will no longer be eligible for funding through Jordan’s Principle.
Moving forward, applications will only be considered if the school board clearly demonstrates that a student’s needs cannot be met through the services currently available.
“At this time, the exact impact is still uncertain and depends on several evolving factors,” HSCDSB said in a statement provided to SooToday Tuesday.
“We expect to have more clarity as we approach the 2025-2026 school year.”
The board also stressed that it is not reducing its own support or services for students.
“We understand that these changes may raise concerns, and we want to assure our school communities that we are committed to supporting students and families through this transition,” the board said.
Jordan's Principle is named after Jordan River Anderson, a Manitoba boy with multiple disabilities who died in hospital waiting for the province and Ottawa to decide who should pay for health supports that would allow him to go home.
It stems from a human rights complaint filed by the Assembly of First Nations and the First Nations Family and Caring Society in 2007, where they argued First Nations children were being denied equal services to other children as a result of the constant jurisdictional disputes.
Sweeping changes to the funding eligibility announced by Canada in February included barring funding approvals under Jordan's Principle for home renovations, sporting events, international travel, non-medical supports or school-related requests unless required to ensure equality with kids who are not First Nations.
At the time, Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu said the federal government was implementing “new ways to process requests to expedite decision-making and address the increased demand,” for access to the funding.
There were 614,350 funding requests through Jordan’s Principle approved in 2021-2022. But in 2023-2024, the number of requests ballooned to almost three million — representing a 367-per-cent increase.
The changes to Jordan’s Principle funding come almost a year after the federal government argued before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that requests were being made for a number of non-urgent things including gaming consoles and bicycles.
As previously reported by SooToday, those changes have resulted in extensive cutbacks to both services and staff at Nogdawindamin, Waabinong Head Start Family Resource Centre and Garden River Wellness Centre since the new guidelines went into effect.
CUPE Local 4148 says one of the changes made to Jordan’s Principle was that positions created through school boards now have to be funded through the provincial government’s regular school board funding model.
Ontario has earmarked $30.3 billion for education in the province, but the union still isn’t clear on whether or not the province plans to make up for the “federal government’s retreat from Jordan's Principal funding,” Krauter said.
The union president said the dispute between the federal and provincial governments over who will support Jordan's Principal funding will likely mean all 74 educational assistants at HSCDSB will lose their jobs, and that children will “lose the supports they rely on to succeed.”
“This is exactly the kind of scenario Jordan’s Principle was intended to avoid,” Krauter said. “This is another case in which Indigenous and First Nations children are caught in the crossfire between levels of government, and this will have an immense impact on students and will exacerbate the understaffing crisis in schools across Ontario.”
Neither Sault Ste. Marie MP Terry Sheehan nor Sault Ste. Marie-Algoma MPP Chris Scott responded to requests for comment made by SooToday last week.
- with files from The Canadian Press