In case you’ve been wondering why support staff in many Alberta school districts are on strike, I want to share the following pertinent information and personal reflections.
First of all, let me say that as a teacher with a forty-year career in public education, the support staff in our schools are unsung and underappreciated heroes. They clean our large and technically complex buildings and work with many of a school’s most challenging students.
The salary of educational assistants in Alberta has stagnated and even declined over the past decade, with significant impacts when adjusted for inflation:
Wage stagnation: Most education support workers, including educational assistants, have not received a wage increase in nearly a decade.
Declining average salary: The average wage for educational assistants in Alberta has dropped from $27,500 per year in 2022 to $26,400 in 2023.
Hourly rate decrease: The hourly pay rate for educational assistants has fallen from $22.40 to $20.581.
Below the poverty line: The current average salary of $26,400 for educational assistants is below the Alberta poverty line of $26,55016.
Actual wage decrease: When adjusted for inflation, which has increased by 22.3% over the last decade, the average income of education support workers has effectively decreased to $21,363.46 a year.
Falling behind inflation: In the last 11 years, wages for education support workers have fallen behind inflation by 24%.
Lagging behind average salaries: Educational assistant wages have fallen behind the increase in the average Albertan salary by 22% over the past 11 years.
This trend of stagnant or declining wages, combined with rising inflation, has significantly impacted the purchasing power and living standards of educational assistants in Alberta over the past decade.
According to the most recent data, Alberta spends significantly less per student in public education compared to the rest of Canada:
Alberta’s per-student spending is the lowest among all Canadian provinces, at $11,464 for the 2022-23 school year.
This amount is over 16% below the national average of $13,692 per student.
The gap between Alberta’s spending and the national average has been growing, increasing by 3% from the previous year and 11% since Alberta first fell to the bottom of the scale in 2018-2019.
To bring education spending to the national average, Alberta school boards would need at least a 13% boost in funding, equivalent to about $10 per student per school day.
Regarding teacher compensation per student, Alberta ranks last at $8,202, almost $1,600 below the national average.
Education support workers deserve better; public education in Alberta needs appropriate support commensurate with Alberta’s relative means, and our children deserve better!