Submission #2522

Sometimes, an idea that looks good on paper is quite damaging when put into action. The reduction in hours for pedagogical support staff in early years centres is one of those times. This letter relates to just one of many ways this damage will be experienced… the impact on whole-Centre operations. For the past few years in early childhood centres across PEI, educators have been able to go home after a full day of work- tired, but feeling a sense of accomplishment, knowing things are ready for the next day; they have team members who help make that happen – pedagogical support staff. Without pedagogical support staff, much of this work to support children and families goes back to being unpaid, hidden labour, and yes… most of that is still women’s labour.

This funding cut places the work of children’s documentation back to the educator’s kitchen table in the evenings; back to preparing for meetings with specialists for children in their care once they put their own children to bed; creating programming while they eat their supper…and it results in increased stressors on educators to achieve the required Assessment for Quality Improvement criteria when there is reduced opportunity for reflection and response based on their time with/observing the children. While reducing pedagogical support positions may have seemed like the ‘least harm’ because these are not in-ratio positions, the fact of the matter is… cutting these positions causes the most invasive harm because this cut impacts every staff person in the Centre. Over a very short period of time, as the pressure to carry these responsibilities transitions onto educators, you will see the impacts.

In order to show up every day and provide high quality, emergent play and learning for their group of children, early childhood educators rely on pedagogical support colleagues to help them, in a wide range of ways, do the best job they can to support each child’s development and wellness…each child with their emerging skills in language, literacy, social and emotional understanding, thinking and problem solving, healthy identity formation, learning dispositions, bodily functions and self-care, all of this happening and more while their small bodies are still growing their nervous systems and capacities to regulate… many people still have a very limited understanding of what early childhood care and education is about in 2026, but it is a lot more work than setting out the paints and some playdough.

It is unconscionable to ask this system to go backwards… to ask educators to take much of their off-the-floor work home again. As Early Years Centres, this off-the-floor work is now required by the province – it is a key part of their JOB RESPONSIBILITIES. How can a system that requires, among other things, ongoing curriculum programming, child documentation, parent-educator meetings, child profiles, and extensive quality assurance procedures, diminish the infrastructure that supports this to happen? Even staff meetings cannot happen during the run of their workday, due to the nature of this work. There is no summer reset, there is no getting ahead on March Break; this system runs all year long, with most Centres open long hours (7am to 6pm)… ECEs do not have an hour or two each day, after the children go home, to think about and prepare for tomorrow’s learning and play. Centres NEED their pedagogical support colleagues at full capacity to make this work.
We have come so far as a sector, but all of this is still built on a very finely balanced edge. The work in early childhood is much more structured than it was 15 years ago, with more requirements associated with the funding Centres receive in PEI. This helps ensure consistency of quality, but it relies heavily on the right roles to be in place. What looks like a reduction in hours to one position impacts this system in ways that are deep and wide.
Early childhood services are designed for the children and families in their communities. The ways the Provincial government (and now Federal) has supported and invested in ECE over the past 15 years have been fundamental – and nothing was ‘extra’. The system that was introduced in 2010 and has emerged in a number of ways to build a healthy, solid system for quality care for the taxpayers who need this service. These investments did not come from a place of generosity, they were not a gift to the early childhood educators; each piece was integral and the least of what is needed to modernize a system that has been perpetually misunderstood and poorly resourced. People in the early childhood sector are resilient and creative; this is true. We should be celebrated, honoured, and respected for these skills. We have honed them over decades of never having what was needed to do the job, and yet, the job was done well.
But does this mean we should be asked to deliver this emerging model of quality care and education within the old, outdated infrastructure, which was built on the backs of the people who work in the sector? It must be noted, the benefits of this system do not have to be accomplished at the expense of healthy, well-supported educators and early childhood staff. PEOPLE should NEVER be the first way to manage increasing expenses. There are ways to address budget concerns related to this system other than slashing at the very heart of what keeps it running.
The investments have allowed ECEs and other early childhood team members to look up from their work, take a breath, and realize others are seeing their work as vital to a strong and thriving community, province, and country. Now is NOT the time to drop off… it is the time to double down on the progress that has been made, to be CHAMPIONS for EVERYONE working in the early childhood sector… and to make sure every single person who is making this work still knows they are ESSENTIAL. Retain pedagogical support as full time positions in early years centres.