Educators, technicians and attendants must hold multiple jobs because they are unable to have a full-time schedule in schools, a “nonsense” when we know that the needs of students are greater than ever.
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“It’s frustrating on a daily basis. People would like to meet needs, but we are not given the hours,” sighs Marie-Chantal Clin.
This technician-interpreter works with deaf or hard of hearing students in a school in Sherbrooke. In class, she helps a student express herself and understand what teachers say using Quebec sign language.
But as soon as the bell rings, the service no longer applies, as if the students’ problems disappear during recess or lunch.
“Often, the student remains alone and isolated because there is no one to help them communicate with others,” laments M.me Clin.
She would like to work more to better support him, but her schedule is limited to 31 hours per week. “And I consider myself lucky!”, some only having around fifteen hours on their schedule.
She therefore has to take a second job in a pharmaceutical laboratory to make ends meet.
What shortage?
The shortage of staff in schools often makes the headlines, but it is artificially inflated by the “culture of precariousness” which is rife in the system, denounces Éric Pronovost, president of the Federation of School Support Personnel (FPSS-CSQ), which is part of the Common Front bringing together some 420,000 union members.
“This is nonsense. It’s frustrating for parents who see that their child doesn’t have the services they should have. And it’s frustrating for the person who works 15 hours and who knows very well that there is work for 30 hours,” he illustrates.
The large majority of support employees who provide direct services to students work part-time, their rate of precariousness approaching 84%, according to the FPSS.
For example, there are nearly 40,000 special education technicians (TES) across the network. But in reality, these employees work a number of hours equivalent to that of only 10,000 full-time people.
Students in crisis
These include, for example, educators who can come running when a young person is in crisis or support students who have special needs.
Claudia* (fictitious name) has been a TES for almost twenty years in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean. She works 25 hours a week with adult students with disabilities to help them gain independence.
However, she could do more. Teachers at his school told him: “I need [de ton aide]but I don’t have any services,” says Claudia.
This single mother therefore has no choice but to work evenings and weekends in the health care system.
*Fictitious name. She preferred that her real name not be used to avoid retaliation from her employer.
Éric Pronovost, president of the Federation of School Support Personnel (FPSS-CSQ)
Photo Dominique Scali
We could offer a “VIP service” to students… if we wanted
Educators on buses, support at daycare, workers who have time to talk together. We could offer all of this to students if only we created full-time positions for support staff, believes a union representative.
“We have plenty of people in the network who would like to do more,” says Éric Pronovost of the FPSS-CSQ. “So when people talk to me about shortages, it doesn’t bother me.”
According to him, many situations observed in the school system could be improved by maximizing the working hours of educators and technicians who are already there.
“When little William arrives at 7 a.m. in the morning, if the TES is with him to accompany him to daycare, perhaps he will arrive in class much less agitated,” illustrates Mr. Pronovost.
Insufficient
Precariousness and the idea of offering more full-time tasks to certain employment groups are among the issues currently discussed at the negotiating tables, indicates Minister Sonia LeBel, president of the Treasury Board, by email.
The government is banking in particular on the classroom support project, which will allow some 4,000 daycare educators to be present in 15,000 primary school classes.
“But it won’t be enough and it won’t solve everything,” says Éric Pronovost.
For example, this project will do nothing to improve the reality during recess or daycare, when the ratios are often exceeded and those responsible find themselves with around thirty or forty children without any support.
Ideally, there would be TESs in certain school buses and social work technicians to bridge the gap with the community, for example, illustrates Mr. Pronovost.
Unpredictable
It would be possible to offer “a VIP service” to students, which would ensure that even those who have difficulties want to come to school in the morning, he believes.
But for this to happen, the orientations and budgets would first have to be reviewed at a high level, believes Donald Landry, director of communications at the School Service Center (CSS) of the Sherbrooke Region. Because currently, the funding granted by the government to the CSS does not correspond to such a broad vision of the role of the school, he summarizes.
This is also reflected in the lack of predictability in the schedules of psychoeducators, psychologists, speech therapists and other professionals, who never know from one year to the next if their school will be able to rehire them. The public system therefore struggles to retain them, adds Éric Gingras, president of the Centrale des syndicats du Québec.