40
A behaviour plan contains similar information and seeks to achieve a similar
goal, i.e., informing teachers, education assistants and the like working with a
particular student with special needs of relevant information about the student and
the disabilities he suffers from with a view to providing them with strategies to
respond to misbehaviour on the student’s part. First of all, the student’s strengths
and preferences from an academic perspective are reviewed. Next, his disabilities
are identified as well as the misbehaviours that can result when his disabilities are
activated. Again, they are quite straightforward. For example, the student
concerned had a tendency to become frustrated from working too long. He became
tired, needed to move, and this could generate the inappropriate behaviour, in his
case, pinching, pushing and hitting. The behaviour plan then suggested a number of
alternative strategies to deal with the acting out. First of all, if the education
assistant sensed that the student was becoming tired and frustrated with his current
activity, she could change the task the student was performing to something
different. Alternatively, she could warn him that if his misbehaviour continued
other consequences would follow or he could be given a time out until he calmed
down. Or his mother would be contacted so that she could speak to him and
reinforce what the education assistant was telling him to do.
Thus, in my view, an education assistant who is assisting a classroom teacher
with discipline in her classroom including by utilizing general principles of
behaviour modification and non-violent crisis intervention as well as strategies
outlined in the safety plans and behaviour support plans for particular students is
performing those duties in accordance with either “standardized procedures or
instructions” within the meaning of Degree 2 or “established procedures or policies”
within the meaning of Degree 3. The identification of cases of misbehaviour and
conflict requiring management and crisis intervention is generally straightforward.
It is the response to such misbehaviour and conflict where “some judgment” is
required. However, through the Employer’s policies and procedures and training
such as MANDT System training, and through individual special needs students’
safety plans and behaviour support plans, various alternative solutions to the
misbehaviour and conflict are proposed for the education assistant to consider and
choose from. The matter of student discipline is not simply left to the education
assistant to decide based on only “broad policies, procedures, precedents or
guidelines . . . .” In my view, that level of initiative and discretion falls within the
scope of Degree 3 of the Decision-Making factor.
Another important role performed by education assistants is providing
personal care and medical assistance to students with special needs present in the
classroom to which they have been assigned. Personal care duties such as feeding,
toileting, and clothing/dressing are straightforward for the most part. I can foresee
there might be some room for the exercise of some initiative and discretion in the
areas of feeding and clothing/dressing, but I do not believe that would extend
beyond choosing from a “limited number of alternatives.” With respect to providing
assistance in relation to students’ medical needs such as seizure management,
administering medications, positioning and assisting with safe mobility, there would