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.