Alberta school divisions cutting support staff after lapse in Jordan's Principle funding

School divisions across Alberta are reckoning with a federal funding change that means less money for Indigenous students learning off-reserve.

Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS) in northern Alberta eliminated 105 full-time equivalent educational assistants earlier this month. It comes after the Wild Rose School Board in central Alberta laid off 46 educational assistants in December, citing the same reason.

Jordan's Principle is a legal rule to ensure First Nations children get services they need without delay. It's named after five-year-old Jordan River Anderson from Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba. He died in 2005, caught in a two-year battle between the province and Ottawa over who would pay for his care.

NLPS said in a statement that 280 students in the division were receiving services through federal Jordan's Principle funding, and it applied following the same criteria that had been approved in previous years, asking for $7 million. 

Following significant delays and uncertainty in receiving the funding, the division paid for the services using its reserves so students could receive support for as long as possible. 

Kristin Degagne was one of those laid off in the division.

She had been working with a First Nations child who received Jordan's Principle funding to provide support for severe medical and educational needs. The student uses a wheelchair and is non-verbal. 

Degagne said the two of them had built up a relationship over the child's first two years in elementary school.

"I have lots of worries," she said. "There's such a connection. A lot of students rely on that connection to actually make it through the day.

"It's hard, it's heartbreaking. They don't know what to do. They struggle with when things are different."

Degagne said while she's sad she lost her job, she feels bad for the students and the staff.

In an interview with CBC News, Vanessa Roesler said her six-year-old autistic daughter Olena has been greatly affected. When it's time to go to school, Olena screams, cries, and hides — now that she has a new EA that she has no pre-existing relationship with. 

Roesler thinks her daughter, who is non-verbal, will have to move to half-day schooling due to the disruption in her routine.

Roesler is a single parent in Kikino Métis Settlement, northeast of Edmonton, and her children go to a school in Lac La Biche, which is part of NLPS.

She said while Métis children are not eligible for individual Jordan's Principle funding requests, the school had a high percentage of First Nations children so Olena's educational assistant was funded through federal funds.

Roesler said Jordan's Principle funding being used to hire so many essential staff, signals a problem with the system. 

"It's very unfortunate that our school system had to rely on that type of funding.

"There never should have been federal dollars blurring those lines if it wasn't going to be permanent."

Yvonne Lessard is another Métis parent in the division, based in Lac La Biche. After fighting to get an education assistant for her eight-year-old son Emersyn for two years, he no longer has one.

Lessard said her son will struggle without someone to help regulate him and manage his ADHD,

"I worry as a parent. I'm working full time and I know I'm going to get calls from the school to go and try to help deal with him," Lessard said.

"Him having that EA support, I felt great about it — the stress was off."

What changed?

On February 10, Indigenous Services Canada changed the guidelines for Jordan's Principle funding. The ISC said in a statement that funding will not be approved for school-related requests unless it is linked to a "specific health, social or educational need of the First Nation child or if required by substantive equality."

All other requests from school boards off-reserve and private schools will be redirected to provincial authorities or other existing provincial and federal programs.

This led Edmonton Public Schools to conclude it is no longer eligible for the program. It had been receiving funding since 2019-2020 and budgeted for $2.5 million this school year.

"Recently we've been advised that children who are off reserves will no longer qualify for access to Jordan's Principle," superintendent Darrel Robertson said at the April 9 school board meeting.

Robertson said since school boards started applying for this funding a few years ago, he was always aware that it wasn't a given.

"I recall personally expressing some caution around utilizing these resources to hire staff," he said.

What now?

Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said he wrote to federal Minister of Indigenous Services Canada Patty Hajdu in December, calling for immediate action to expedite the review process.

"These layoffs threaten to undo years of work building trust, fostering relationships, and supporting First Nations families," the letter read.

"I don't understand why the federal government just can't provide the funding that they agreed to," Nicolaides told CBC News.

Jennifer Cooper, spokesperson for Indigenous Services Canada said in a statement that supporting First Nations children is a provincial and federal responsibility — but added ensuring equal access to educational services for all students is a provincial one. 

Lorraine Muskwa, COO of the advocacy group First Nations Health Consortium, which helps families with Jordan's Principle applications, said these circumstances go against the values of the principle.

"And that was the intention not to happen — this jurisdictional fight. And unfortunately we're hearing that if it is a First Nations child, we'll just refer them to Jordan's Principle," Muskwa said.

"I went to school off-reserve. They didn't have Jordan's Principal then. But if there was a service I needed, I received that service … So again, where's the province in this?"