I have a personal vendetta on this. We need to keep working for kids. There s a shortage of staff and shortage of people. If the staff is expected to solve all the social problems too, then we need more staff. I think the underlying issue really is that the needs of these kids, at least in areas like this school, are really changing and so the schools really need the resources to be able to get back to that and help these kids in a different way.
Training is inadequate.
There are no guidelines for educational assistants to outline what they should or shouldn t be doing. Different members of the group have been educational assistants in different schools and sometimes they feel like they re contributing by doing work that s really connected with kids. At other times they really just do paperwork and that doesn t seem like a very important contribution. It doesn t seem like they re really helping or making a difference. In this school, they re involved with students and they feel like that is the appropriate role.