Ed. note: Education Minister Jeanie McLean issued this statement last Thursday.

Educational assistants are an important part of the broader supports for Yukon learners.

Each spring, educational assistants are allocated to Yukon schools for the following school year.

For the 2024-25 school year, the department made updates to the educational assistant allocation process.

School boards were provided with a personnel allocation to use within their schools to meet their needs.

In Yukon Education schools, student support services and educators were completing a collaborative process to make allocation decisions.

These updates were based on fall 2023 conversations with partners involved in the process, along with comprehensive research.

While this work is in the early stages, with more improvements to come, it represents a tangible outcome of our overall work to Reimagine Inclusive and Special Education.

The goal of these updates was to establish a more transparent and objective framework to better serve Yukon students.

While the intent of these changes is to better support learners, I have heard and understand the apprehensions raised by our partners on the updated process.

Working with our partners is of critical importance. To respectfully address these concerns, we are taking a pause to gather and better understand our partners’ feedback in a productive, forward-leaning way.

Our overall educational assistant allocation increased this school year by 13 and is set to increase again for the 2024-25 school year by another 10 full-time positions.

We are also making significant investments in school-based resources because we know how important it is to ensure that students have the support they need in their classroom.

In addition to adding more educational assistants, we have also increased the number of learning assistance teachers in Yukon schools.

There are 15 additional learning assistance teachers in schools for the 2023-24 school year, with an additional eight planned for 2024-25.

As minister of Education, one of my top priorities is ensuring that we are working to provide timely and effective supports to meet students’ diverse needs comprehensively.

We are working to create schools that are safe, inclusive environments where every child feels connected and supported to thrive.