The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Paraeducators ask CT lawmakers for better pay, working conditions: ‘We are not compensated accordingly’
Connecticut paraeducators want higher salaries and more attention paid to staffing levels, they told the state legislature’s Education Committee at a public hearing this week.
More than a dozen paraeducators, whose provide support to students and teachers, testified Wednesday in support of House Bill 6881, which would set a minimum salary for paras, offer them better health insurance, grant them a larger role in the planning and placement team process, require an annual report on staffing levels for the position and more.
“Despite the importance of our jobs, we are the lowest-paid employees in the school,” said Beth Vickery, a paraeducator at East Hampton High. “Paraeducators have the closest relationship with students, usually working with the ones that need the most support, yet we are not compensated accordingly.”
Numerous paraeducators described salaries below living wages, paid out only during the school year and not in the summer. Under the proposed bill, paras would earn a minimum salary no less than three and three-quarters times the federal poverty level for a family of two (or just under $68,700 currently).
“Unfortunately, with all the wonderful education that we provide for our students, we are understaffed and underpaid,” testified Victoria Ceylan, a paraeducator for pre-K students in Danbury. “I have been a paraeducator since 2014, and as embarrassing as this may be to say publicly, I make under $16 an hour.”
Ceylan’s son A.J., a Danbury High grad and current UConn student who has cerebral palsy, also testified Wednesday, telling the committee he could not have made it through school without his paras, who “went above and beyond their call of duty to help me be the best I can be.”
He recalled one para from elementary school who taught him an array of fundamental skills and another from high school was like a “second mother.”
“Paraeducators are heroes in my eyes because they help students like me who can’t do everything on their own,” Ceylan testified. “We need help, and paras are our parents away from home, constantly educating us and protecting us.”
Some paraeducators who testified described feeling overworked and under-appreciated, contributing to an alarming turnover rate in the profession. Amid a broader teacher shortage statewide, paraeducator positions have often proven particularly difficult to fill.
“I fear many will no longer choose to be paras if something is not changed now,” Debra Field, another para at East Hampton High, told the committee. “The high turnover rate and vacant paraeducator positions in the state affects the quality and consistency of the education of our schools’ most vulnerable
population, special education students.”
Though testimony for the bill, both written and in-person, was largely in support, the proposal drew opposition from the executive director of the Connecticut Council of Small Towns, who argued that a minimum wage and better health insurance for paras “will impose significant costs on municipalities that are already struggling to fund the cost of education.”
Similarly, Stephanie Levin, an administrator in the Somers school district, wrote that “the rates that are proposed in this bill would create a significant financial impact to towns.” She described the proposal as “concerning” and criticized “the overreach by the state to dictate wages on a local level.”
Charlene Russell-Tucker, the state’s education commissioner, offered support for some aspects of the proposal but wrote that an annual report of paraeducator staffing “would represent a massive data collection burden on both the local school districts
and the state” and that boosting pay to the level called for in the bill would pose “a challenge.”
The paraeducator bill is cosponsored by four Democrats, three in the state Senate and one in the state House. It was one of 11 up for review by the Education Committee on Wednesday. Other proposals related to air quality in schools, teacher certification, restraint and seclusion of students and more.
Committee members will now decide whether to advance the paraeductor proposal, which has support from the Connecticut Education Association and several unions that represent paras.
“It is long past due that we show our paras they are valued in our school districts and pay them a living wage,” Tricia Santos, a former para in Killingly who now works as a union staff representative. “Paras know what is best for our students, and it is time to tell them thank you for all they do.”