Board officials say the strike's impact on schools varies across the city. (CBC)

A strike by Calgary public school support workers entered its second day Wednesday, causing the greatest disruption for students with special needs who rely on education assistants.

Wages, workplace respect and health benefits are the main issues for roughly 3,500 workers in their contract talks with the Calgary Board of Education. The group includes educational assistants, secretaries and speech pathologists.

The two-day job action has shut down the Christine Miekle and Emily Follensbee schools for children with disabilities, because the board felt the facilities couldn't be run safely without the support staff. They're expected to return to work Thursday, but renewed strike action is possible over the next four months.

Students at both schools have disabilities such as cerebral palsy and require constant care, which is usually provided by educational assistants.

Families of children with special needs have had to scramble to find care for them.

Trina Cwik stayed at home Tuesday with her son, Dominique, 13, who goes to Emily Follensbee. He's in a wheelchair and looking after him involves a lot of work, but Cwik said breaking her son's routine is a bigger challenge.

"Today he's definitely quite agitated," she told CBC News. "He is out of his element. He is used to his routine. He knows what's going on. He knows he's home and he should be at school, but he doesn't understand the full implications of why."

More requests for respite care

Groups that provide services for the disabled are seeing an increase in requests from parents for respite care.

The Developmental Disabilities Resource Centre of Calgary, which provides care that allows parents to take a break, says families get a limited amount of funding from the province for respite care, so spending it during the strike means less money for care when they really need it.

'He is out of his element. He is used to his routine. He knows what's going on. He knows he's home and he should be at school, but he doesn't understand the full implications of why.'—Trina Cwik

"So families now are having to choose to pay for respite to have their children looked after during a school day, when they normally would be in school and under the care of the teachers," said Odette Dantzer, the centre's CEO.

The Calgary board's other schools are still open, and scheduled final exams are going ahead.

But Bruce Howell from Calgary's SCOPE Society said even families from schools that aren't closed are being affected.

"Families that have aid supports in schools are keeping their kids at home, because if they don't have the aid support during the day at school it's going overflow into problems in the evening at home."

Howell said many of those parents are staying home from work to look after their children.

Cwik said she supports the workers' strike, because the aides who help her son work hard and are not paid enough, but she is concerned about what will happen if the labour dispute drags on through the summer or even into the fall.