Anglophone East School District short $2M for educational assistants

The Anglophone East School District says it doesn't have enough money to cover about 60 educational assistant positions in the upcoming school year.

The budget for educational assistants (EAs) for students with special needs at schools in the southeastern part of the province is about $2 million short.

Earlier this week, the district education council decided not to pass the budget "because they can't approve a deficit budget and I can't run a deficit budget," said Gregg Ingersoll, district superintendent.

Officials are now scrambling to find the money.

"You have so much money to work with. And if you can't make it work, then you have to make some changes and make some decisions to make it work," he said.

"If no new resources come into the system, then we'll have to take a look at what we're doing and try to, you know, streamline some things we're doing, prioritize."

'Crucial' to inclusive system

Ingersoll said EAs are "crucial" to New Brunswick's inclusive education system, but funding hasn't kept pace with the growing need over the past couple of years.

The district anticipates it will need about 472 EAs in September, he said.

That's up from about 450 this past school year and 437 the previous year.

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development did not respond to a request from CBC News Wednesday for an interview.

In an emailed statement Thursday morning, Minister Dominic Cardy said school districts are provided with a global budget.

"It is up to them to decide how to allocate their funds."

Ingersoll said a greater number of students who require assistance are entering the school system each year than the number leaving.

We feel it's going to be challenging for us to make that up.- Gregg Ingersoll, Anglophone East superintendent

This year, for example, 14 Grade 12 students with EAs are graduating, while 35 children with special needs are starting kindergarten.

"So that's a difference of 21 right there," he said, not including any students entering the system from out of province.

Some classrooms with about 20 students have as many as four educational assistants to ensure the students with special needs get the one-on-one attention they require and that the learning of other students isn't disrupted.

"You have to have [educational assistants] and they do a wonderful job of supporting the students and making everything flow," he said. "But as you can see, the number is growing and growing and growing and as long as you have the funding, that's one thing, but if you don't have the funding, it's just challenging to make sure that we make it all work."

The district faced a funding shortfall for EAs last year too, but it was able to move money around within its global budget to cover it.

The budget for staff salaries, which is the largest line item, usually provides some flexibility, said Ingersoll.

The district also received some extra funding last September because of increased enrolment.

"So that kind of helped us out last year. And we're anticipating that's probably going to happen again this year because our forecasting for the Atlantic immigration strategy is forecasting a lot of growth for the Moncton area," he said.

This year, the gap is too big, said Ingersoll.

"We feel it's going to be challenging for us to make that up."