Union groups are highlighting the vital role education support professionals play in Commonwealth public schools, and they are advocating for better pay and working conditions.
ESPs include paraeducators, caretakers and maintenance workers, bus drivers, cafeteria attendants, security guards, computer support workers, etc. The vast majority of ESPs earn less than $30,000 per year.
Yahaira Rodriguez, a paraeducator in Worcester, said many ESPs live in low-income housing or struggle to meet other basic needs.
“I have a bachelor’s degree,” she said. “Most of these educators are also very, very educated; they even have a master’s degree, they have a bachelor’s degree, they have associates — and we’re not paying them what they deserve.”
the Massachusetts Teachers Association put together what he calls the “ESP Bill of Rights” to demand a living wage, affordable health insurance, paid family and medical leave, job security, and recognition as educators, among others. ESP’s bill of rights also calls for an affordable way to achieve more education and pay off career-related debt.
Today and Saturday, the union is holding its ESP annual conference for professional development and networking.
“It sometimes feels like a vicious cycle, not being able to get out of the trap of earning that unlivable wage,” said Katie Monopoli, a paraprofessional in Shrewsbury with several other jobs and attending a graduate school for clinical mental medicine. health consultant with a specialization in dance and movement therapy. “So I’m taking out loans, which is very anxiety-inducing, of course. Balancing all the jobs and also going to school is a lot.”
Many ESP contracts do not have automatic renewal clauses, 90-day trial periods, or “justified” protections against dismissal. During the pandemic, Rodriguez said, many ESPs lost their jobs.
“If we’re not here to help our autistic children go to the toilet, or if we’re not here to help our English learners, who’s going to do the job? One person can’t do the job,” said she declared. “We have to do it collectively.”
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Education leaders across the state are debating the merits of a bill to change the way schools are funded in California.
Senate Bill 830introduced by state superintendent of schools Tony Thurmond would end the current system of funding schools based on average daily attendance (ADA) and count enrollment instead.
Erin Simon, assistant superintendent of school support services for the Long Beach Unified School District and president-elect of the California Association of School Administrators, said the current system penalizes low-income school districts where attendance is lower. .
“These districts are already receiving less money for a population that has more needs,” Simon said. “I think we have to do better.”
Experts attribute the lower attendance rates to things beyond the districts’ control, in neighborhoods where families face a lack of transportation, or higher rates of asthma and, more recently, COVID. California is one of six states to use an attendance-based formula.
Carrie Hahnel, senior director of policy and strategy at Berkeley’s nonprofit Opportunity Institute, said the debate over how to fund schools ignores the big picture.
“Moving from ADA to enrollment is not a solution to the declining enrollment crisis,” Hahnel argued. “It could provide a short-term band-aid for some school districts that are really feeling the financial pain that comes with losing enrollment.”
The State Department of Finance is planning a 9% drop in registrations by 2031, a drop of half a million students, a phenomenon linked to the high cost of living in the Golden State.
Julien Lafortune, a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California, said Los Angeles had been hardest hit.
“(Los Angeles) County, for example, has seen a 12% drop in the last decade and is actually projecting an even bigger drop of about 20% in the next decade,” he said. observed Lafortune.
He noted that parts of the Central Valley, Bay Area and Sacramento Valley, which have seen growth in recent years, are now forecasting slight declines. The Sierras and North Sacramento Valley districts are forecasting modest increases in enrollment.
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Gov. Glenn Youngkin has made removing so-called “divisive” classes on race, history and identity from classrooms a cornerstone of his administration. Now a group is working to ensure that teachers can still access the material.
the Virginia Education Association (VEA) has launched an online portal for equity and diversity training materials purged from the Ministry of Education website.
James Fedderman, president of the VEA, told a press conference this week that the lessons are vital resources for teachers and students.
“We do this because we believe that educators who can teach all of our students all of our history are in the best interests of all of us,” Fedderman said.
A Pew Research poll last August found that Americans were considerably divided on whether increased attention to the history of racism in the United States was good or bad. Just over half of all survey respondents said they thought the lessons were important, but only 46% of white adults favored a greater focus on the history of racism in the United States.
Earlier this year, Youngkin set up a divisive concept advice line for people if they think a teacher is giving lessons to students. Fedderman noted that the initiative, known to opponents as the “whistleblower line,” has created a culture of fear among Virginia teachers.
“Many educators are aware that whatever they teach will be reported to the tip line,” Fedderman observed.
The General Assembly is due to reconvene for a special session next week to finalize the state’s biennial budget, and Fedderman and other education and social justice advocates are pushing lawmakers to increase funding of public education and to increase teachers’ salaries during the session.
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This week, Minneapolis public school students returned to class after a nearly three-week teacher strike, but labor groups say educators and their districts across the state are still feeling the brunt of tight budgets.
The Minneapolis strike has addressed common labor issues such as pay, and other demands have sparked discussions that teachers need broader on-the-job support amid staff burnout.
Denise Specht, president of the statewide teachers’ union Education Minnesota, which represents nearly 90,000 educators, said that with the state’s budget surplus continuing to grow, now is the time to give professionals the help they need.
“Investing in our public schools wouldn’t just help those districts with some of these budget cuts,” Specht pointed out. “But it would actually help solve a lot of the problems that we hear from students and teachers about; things that they need in their schools every day.”
It includes more mental health support. Last year, lawmakers approved the largest increase in school funding in 15 years. But some districts are still projecting deficits and planning cuts, such as the cuts approved this month by Grand Rapids leaders. Democrats and the governor have offered various ways to increase school spending, but GOP lawmakers have argued that the surplus should result in tax relief.
Specht argued that the state needs to get to the point where districts no longer have to rely on local residents to help meet growing operational costs.
“Until we stop these referendums on levies, I think we have to take a serious look at what kind of investments we get from the state,” Specht said.
Other education advocates have noted that while some wealthier districts can afford to continue passing tax increases, lower-income districts often cannot, preventing them from providing some of the services of most basic education.
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