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

Emily Williams · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 19, 2025 8:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

School divisions across Alberta are reckoning with a national backing alteration that means less money for Indigenous students learning off-reserve.

Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS) successful bluish Alberta eliminated 105 full-time equivalent acquisition assistants earlier this month. It comes aft the Wild Rose School Board in cardinal Alberta laid disconnected 46 acquisition assistants successful December, citing the aforesaid reason.

Jordan's Principle is simply a ineligible regularisation to guarantee First Nations children get services they request without delay. It's named aft five-year-old Jordan River Anderson from Norway House Cree Nation successful Manitoba. He died successful 2005, caught successful a two-year conflict betwixt the state and Ottawa implicit who would wage for his care.

NLPS said successful a connection that 280 students successful the part were receiving services done national Jordan's Principle funding, and it applied pursuing the aforesaid criteria that had been approved successful erstwhile years, asking for $7 million. 

Following important delays and uncertainty successful receiving the funding, the part paid for the services utilizing its reserves truthful students could person enactment for arsenic agelong arsenic possible. 

Kristin Degagne was 1 of those laid disconnected successful the division.

She had been moving with a First Nations kid who received Jordan's Principle backing to supply enactment for terrible aesculapian and acquisition needs. The pupil uses a wheelchair and is non-verbal. 

Degagne said the 2 of them had built up a narration implicit the child's archetypal 2 years successful simple school.

"I person tons of worries," she said. "There's specified a connection. A batch of students trust connected that transportation to really marque it done the day.

"It's hard, it's heartbreaking. They don't cognize what to do. They conflict with erstwhile things are different."

Degagne said portion she's bittersweet she mislaid her job, she feels atrocious for the students and the staff.

In an interrogation with CBC News, Vanessa Roesler said her six-year-old autistic girl Olena has been greatly affected. When it's clip to spell to school, Olena screams, cries, and hides — present that she has a caller EA that she has nary pre-existing narration with. 

Roesler thinks her daughter, who is non-verbal, volition person to move to half-day schooling owed to the disruption successful her routine.

Roesler is simply a azygous genitor successful Kikino Métis Settlement, northeast of Edmonton, and her children spell to a schoolhouse successful Lac La Biche, which is portion of NLPS.

She said portion Métis children are not eligible for idiosyncratic Jordan's Principle backing requests, the schoolhouse had a precocious percent of First Nations children truthful Olena's acquisition adjunct was funded done national funds.

Roesler said Jordan's Principle backing being utilized to prosecute truthful galore indispensable staff, signals a occupation with the system. 

"It's precise unfortunate that our schoolhouse strategy had to trust connected that benignant of funding.

"There ne'er should person been national dollars blurring those lines if it wasn't going to beryllium permanent."

Yvonne Lessard is different Métis genitor successful the division, based successful Lac La Biche. After warring to get an acquisition assistant for her eight-year-old lad Emersyn for 2 years, helium nary longer has one.

Lessard said her lad volition conflict without someone to assistance modulate him and negociate his ADHD,

"I interest arsenic a parent. I'm moving afloat clip and I cognize I'm going to get calls from the schoolhouse to spell and effort to assistance woody with him," Lessard said.

"Him having that EA support, I felt large astir it — the accent was off."

What changed?

On February 10, Indigenous Services Canada changed the guidelines for Jordan's Principle funding. The ISC said successful a connection that backing volition not beryllium approved for school-related requests unless it is linked to a "specific health, societal oregon acquisition request of the First Nation kid oregon if required by substantive equality."

All different requests from schoolhouse boards off-reserve and backstage schools volition beryllium redirected to provincial authorities oregon different existing provincial and national programs.

This led Edmonton Public Schools to reason it is nary longer eligible for the program. It had been receiving backing since 2019-2020 and budgeted for $2.5 cardinal this schoolhouse year.

"Recently we've been advised that children who are disconnected reserves volition nary longer suffice for entree to Jordan's Principle," superintendent Darrel Robertson said astatine the April 9 schoolhouse committee meeting.

Robertson said since schoolhouse boards started applying for this backing a fewer years ago, helium was ever alert that it wasn't a given.

"I callback personally expressing immoderate caution astir utilizing these resources to prosecute staff," helium said.

What now?

Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said helium wrote to national Minister of Indigenous Services Canada Patty Hajdu successful December, calling for contiguous enactment to expedite the reappraisal process.

"These layoffs endanger to undo years of enactment gathering trust, fostering relationships, and supporting First Nations families," the missive read.

"I don't recognize wherefore the national authorities conscionable can't supply the backing that they agreed to," Nicolaides told CBC News.

Jennifer Cooper, spokesperson for Indigenous Services Canada said successful a connection that supporting First Nations children is simply a provincial and national work — but added ensuring adjacent entree to acquisition services for each students is simply a provincial one. 

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

"And that was the volition not to hap — this jurisdictional fight. And unluckily we're proceeding that if it is simply a First Nations child, we'll conscionable notation them to Jordan's Principle," Muskwa said.

"I went to schoolhouse off-reserve. They didn't person Jordan's Principal then. But if determination was a work I needed, I received that work … So again, where's the state successful this?"