Understanding the Role of Educational Assistant – Ariel Su

 
I am very fortunate because I work with an amazing group of EAs at my school. There are eight full-

time EAs and one part-time EA at my school. Currently, I have two EAs in my class, one in the morning and

another in the afternoon. They work closely with a few students (two 1701s and a few other students) and

bounces around the room during work times. Every morning, they have a quick meeting with the Admin on who

and placed in which classes, in case anyone is absent that day. If an EA is absent and without a sub, other EAs

may be shifted to cover for different students. The ones with behavioural / health and safety needs will be

covered first before others. The EAs work in different shifts and will be in different classrooms in the morning

and afternoon. For example, my morning EA goes to another class after lunch and my afternoon EA works with

the primary kids in the morning and intermediate in the afternoon. The instructions for EAs are always

communicated by the Administrators. Within the classroom, I have things prepared so that they can work with

specific students on a particular assignment or topic. Due to the fact that I have a close relationship with both of

the EAs I work with, we communicate on a daily basis at the end of the day. We go over what went well and

what we noticed throughout the day. Sometimes, the resource teacher would also be part of the conversation so

that everyone is aware of what is going on. Luckily, I haven’t had any communication issues with my team!

BCTF/CUPE. (2009). Roles and responsibilities of teachers and teacher assistants/education

assistants. https://bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/Issues/InclusiveEd/RolesAndResponsibilitiesTeachersTAs.pd
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