Lack of educational assistants at Waterdown school putting ‘lives in danger’

The mother of a four-year-old boy with special needs is sounding the alarm over a lack of support at a Waterdown elementary school after her son has gone missing several times.

She said the shortage of educational assistants (EA) is putting lives in danger.

Mary Hopkins Public School in Waterdown is currently the oldest school within the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. It is currently sized to hold 400 students, but capacity is at almost 650.

It has culminated in incidents in which students are escaping the classrooms and school.

Laura Vimboule is worried for her son’s safety, four-year-old Logan is on the autism spectrum and has escaped his kindergarten classroom at school at least seven times in the last 6 months.

“It’s terrifying. It’s something no parent should ever have to feel. You send your children to school and you send them for a wonderful education but you expect that they will always be saved that there’s always going to be somebody who has their eyes on them,” said Vimboule.

In one instance, he was actually located in a nearby yard outside of the school. “We don’t feel safe sending him to school anymore … because of where he is right now, he’s not able to share his name, my name, his teachers name so if he is in the community, he’s incredibly vulnerable.”

The school board said they were aware of the incident. “Safety measures are in place to ensure this incident does not happen again. We apologize to the family for the distress this situation has caused,” read the statement. 

Vimboule is one of several parents speaking out about the lack of educational assistants.

Carly Casey, a mother of three and president of PTA, said there are only 2.5 EAs for the 600 students, a ratio of one for every 240 students. “We are a rather high needs school there are a lot of students that need significant help,” said Casey. “We are talking autism, non-verbal flight risk, violent kids that need constant support.”

At each of the other elementary schools in the area, the next worst ratio is 1 to 100 while the rest of the schools have one EA for every 50 to 88 students.

Casey said teachers in general are dealing with a wide variety of behavioral issues, including violent outbursts several times a month that are putting classrooms into lockdown. Casey tells CityNews they have had a meeting to voice their concerns, but nothing has been solved.

“We spent three hours basically begging the superintendent to help, teachers spoke, parents spoke, there were tears. It was devastating to watch. The response we got is there are no more resources you must reallocate what you already have,” shared Casey.

The HWDSB tells CityNews in a statement there are numerous support personnel and a variety of system support staff to support student success and staff work collaboratively to ensure safe, inclusive learning environments.

When asked if there is an EA shortage, their statement read, “We actively monitor and support schools if and when there are staffing pressures. For example, we may adjust staff timetables or access additional staff to go to the school.”

“Human Resource Services is responding to a situation where there are unfilled, daily jobs and engaging in ongoing recruitment efforts across HWDSB,” it continued.

The Ministry of Education said the Hamilton board has the equivalent of 680 full-time education assistants and allocation of those EAs is up to the individual board.

Both moms fully support the teachers, saying they are doing everything they can with limited resources.

Vimboule said she is considering switching school boards to ensure Logan has the supports he needs and that may involve selling their home.

“There’s only one other school and it is also at full capacity,” explained Vimboule. “At this point, our family needs to look at either sending him to a school for children with special needs, which starts at $35,000 a year or we have to seriously look at selling our home and and moving to a place that has a better situation.”