HARDSHIP FOR DISABLED KIDS
Schools short on critically important staff
Staffing shortages at city schools for kids with complex disabilities that have been simmering since the beginning of the school year and were exacerbated by the departure of thousands of additional unvaccinated staffers are causing big headaches for educators and students.
Families and staff at District 75 schools, which provide specialized programs for children with significant needs and require far more employees than traditional schools, say the staffing strains have left teachers overworked and spread thin, and kids paying a steep educational price.
One first-grader with autism at Public School 168X in the Bronx has yet to attend class nearly a month into the year because her school hasn’t been able to provide the paraprofessional she needs to safely ride the bus, her grandmother said.
“They should’ve been better prepared,” said Ms. McLean, the grandmother, who asked to be identified only by her last name. “Unfortunately, the children are left to suffer, because they’re not getting the education they should.”
Teachers say the shortages risk compromising the quality of education they can provide some of the city’s most vulnerable kids.
“We just don’t have the manpower to run the program,” said Tameka Solomon, a teacher and union chapter leader at Public School 352X, a District 75 school in the Bronx.
The Education Department’s vaccine mandate, which took effect Monday, has exacerbated tensions. Roughly 95% of agency workers complied with the order, but more than 7,000 staffers — including around 3,000 teachers, and 2,000 paraprofessionals — were placed on leave after refusing to get a shot. An additional 2,000 first doses have been given out since Monday, Mayor de Blasio said.
But educators say the staffing issues at District 75 programs predate the mandate.
The Mickey Mantle School on the Upper West Side started the year short on paraprofessionals and teachers, and lost about a dozen more to the vaccine mandate, said teacher and union chapter leader Allister Johnson.
“We’re short at least six paras every single day,” Johnson said.
PS 352X, meanwhile, has seen unusually high numbers of daily staff absences, as employees take a more cautious approach to coming into work when sick or stay home with their kids during mandatory quarantines, Solomon said.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” said Solomon. “We’ve just had difficulty staffing; it’s not all just related to the mandate.”
There are signs that paraprofessionals — who provide one-on-one support to students with disabilities or serve as classroom-wide aides, and earn starting salaries as low as $28,000 a year — were in short supply even before the vaccine was required.
The Education Department reported roughly 25,000 paraprofessionals on staff in April 2020, and just 22,900 earlier this month — 1,900 of whom were not vaccinated and barred from classrooms as of Monday.
The vacant positions and frequent absences can create serious ripple effects.
At Mickey Mantle, some classes without assigned teachers have been split up and redistributed, Johnson said, and paraprofessionals are assigned to multiple classrooms instead of just one.
“If I’m a para in a specific classroom, I need to read all these kids’ [Individual Education Plans] so I know allergies, all their learning strengths,” Johnson said. “Now if I get put to a different classroom, I probably haven’t read any of those kids’ IEPs, and I don’t know the ins and outs.”
At PS 352X, teachers and paraprofessionals are working through lunches and planning periods to make sure classes are covered, Solomon said.
Both schools said they’ve tried in vain to find consistent substitute teachers.
“I have my parent coordinator going through the sub list calling people and saying, ‘Are you available?’ And no one is available,” Solomon said.
Education spokeswoman Sarah Casasnovas said there are 3,500 vaccinated substitute paraprofessionals working in classrooms, and 6,200 available in the pool.
Solomon pointed out that substitutes in the pool still have to accept positions, and may reject openings far from where they live, or that won’t lead to long-term positions.
Officials added that they’re reaching out to every District 75 school with an unvaccinated paraprofessional to ensure they have a replacement by Tuesday.
“Every District 75 student should have consistent support, and we’re working hand in hand with principals to address any challenges as swiftly as possible,” said Casasnovas.
The Education Department sent more reinforcements during the week, tapping roughly 1,000 central staffers to redeploy to schools, particularly in District 75.
But the fill-ins, many of whom haven’t set foot in a classroom in years, if at all, and don’t have the training or expertise to deal with kids with significant disabilities, have sometimes just caused more stress, educators said.
Officials said the “vast majority” of the reassigned central staffers have teaching licenses.
“There are people who have never worked with kids who don’t have any teaching experience who are now teaching,” said one central staffer reassigned to a District 75 program, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“I’m placed with kids and I don’t know anything about them. It’s still a safety concern,” the staffer added. “Just as a whole, it’s confusing what the long-term plan is.”