NEA: NEA Today: ESP On the Team

Reader Services
Archives
NEA Today Table of Contents: September 2002
Cover Story
s	My First Year
News
s	Debate
s	Textbook Democracy, NEA-Style
s	Quite Simply, an Issue of Fairness
s	School Funding Adequacy--What It Costs To Do the Job Right
s	Rights Watch
s	Interview
Learning
s	In Focus
s	Problems & Solutions
s	Reading
s	Inside Scoop
s	ESP On the Team
s	Tips for the Wired Classroom
Departments
s	Letters
s	President's Viewpoint
s	My Turn
s	Health & Fitness
s	Money
s	People
s	NEA RA
s	Resources
s	In the Light Lane

Learning: ESP on the Team
Taking It To the Streets

Paraeducators rally a Vermont town for better wages and campaign for new school board members.

After 11 years as a paraeducator in Winooski, Vermont, Sue Ann O'Brien earns less than $13,000 a year, almost $4,000 less than what her mother collects in Social Security and retirement benefits. O'Brien's salary falls short of the $22,727 per year the state says a single person must earn to afford to live in Vermont.

O'Brien's salary is not unusual.

Some of her colleagues must work two or three jobs just to get by, O'Brien says. "I have friends who are single parents who can't even afford birthday presents for their kids," she adds. "We've been working way under wage for years."

Fellow members of the Winooski Education Association agree and think it's time paraeducators earn a livable wage. This fall, they just might get it.

Thanks to the efforts of O'Brien and Mary Lee Grigsby, vice president of the local, three members of the school board now support a livable wage. When the paraeducators start bargaining their new contract next month, they will turn to their school board members for support. After all, the local helped get two of them elected.

"We were looking for somebody to be on the school board who would agree that paraprofessionals deserve a livable wage," says O'Brien. "We started meeting with people and getting a platform together for the campaign."

About a year ago, O'Brien and Grigsby, both paraeducators at John F. Kennedy Elementary School, began educating their colleagues about the need for a livable wage. Paraeducators in Winooski, a small working class city near Burlington, start at $7.25 an hour. A paraeducator with 12 years of experience doesn't earn much more at $9.06 per hour. The district does not have a step system or index that coordinates salary with experience, O'Brien says.

O'Brien and Grigsby formed a livable wage committee. They presented information to their colleagues and rallied school and community support for their cause.

They knew their efforts wouldn't mean much unless they bargained the new salary into their contract and gained school board support. At the time, the paraeducators had one supporter on the five-member board, but the other board members consistently outvoted his motions, says Grigsby.

The terms of two other board members expired in the spring. With the help of Vermont-NEA, the local looked for candidates to challenge the incumbent board members. The team recruited two former paraeducators, Jodi Harrington and Wendy Scully, to enter the race.

"The local did a textbook campaign with a lot of door-to-door work, not an easy task in Vermont in the middle of winter," says Ellen David Friedman, Vermont-NEA organizer. "This group does not even begin to bargain until the fall and they already have transformed the environment."

O'Brien and her committee took to the streets with their campaign. They surveyed community members about livable wage and gathered support for their candidates. Grigsby and Harrington even became public notaries and registered voters.

In March, the two paraeducators achieved a significant victory when Jodi Harrington won a seat on the school board. Meanwhile, Wendy Scully defeated the incumbent school board chairman, Thomas Kane. Before the paraeducators could celebrate the second win, however, Kane requested a recount, which awarded him the seat.

Scully challenged the vote in superior court. A court-directed recount sustained Kane's victory, but a judge ordered a new election after discovering irregularities in the electoral process. Three weeks later, Scully won the seat and joined the board.

"The last board meeting I went to was a whole different experience," says Grigsby. "But we're not resting on our laurels by any means. We're ready for the next fight."

The paraeducators will ask for $10.93 an hour, the state livable wage for an urban area, when they bargain next month. The local also plans to support two more candidates in the next school board election in March.

"We feel that what we've done is wonderful," says Grigsby, "but it's still just the beginning."

--Kristen Loschert

Profile

Giving Kids a Sporting Chance

Name:
Lawrence "Woody" Widmark

Job Title:
Community Schools Sports and Recreation Coordinator, Sitka, Alaska

What I Do In My Job:
I plan adult and youth recreation and indoor and outdoor sports. During the fall we have adult basketball and in the winter we offer youth basketball and coed volleyball. During the summer we have T-ball and outdoor youth soccer and we have a track meet after school ends. Most of my activities are at the middle school. It's really busy. My day starts at two in the afternoon and gets done around 11 o'clock at night. At times we're busy seven days a week.

The Most Rewarding Part of My Job:
Helping people and watching the kids smile. It's rewarding to have a job well done and for people to say thank you. I'm basically a shy person, so a thank you or a smile is rewarding for me.

Why I Do What I Do:
I love what I do. This is my home town, I grew up here. I have the best job in the world. I can't believe I get paid for doing what I really like to do.

My Greatest Passion:
Giving kids an opportunity to participate. Kids just need to participate in something and get recognized.

My Favorite Pastime:
Baseball and sports in general. I've coached little leagues and have been blessed to coach teams that have won little league championships.

My Community Involvement Includes:
I'm the tribal chair for Sitka Tribe Alaska. We have 3,100 tribal citizens enrolled. I participate in the Bara Nof Island Housing Authority. I'm a member of the Elks Lodge, and we help out with the youth soccer program and the Elks Hoop Shoot. I'm an adjutant for the Sons of the American Legion. I also serve the elders at the local senior center on Fridays.

Resources

Fight Privatization
Learn how to protect your school district from private contractors! Check out the updated privatization resources on the NEA ESP website. The site includes background information about privatization trends in public education and local government, links to news stories about problems with contractor services, and links to other resources and research. Go to www.nea.org/esp/privatization/.

New in the "Quality Workforce" Series
Health and Student Services--Building a Quality Workforce is the latest addition to NEA's "Quality Workforce" series.

The 32-page booklet highlights some of the challenges health and student services ESP encounter in their work. The booklet includes sections about federal and state statutes, the national nursing shortage, eating disorders, tattoos and body piercings, and employee safety.

For a copy, call 202/822-7131 or e-mail ESP.Program@nea.org. The booklet also is available online at www.nea.org/esp/jobs/healthqual_intro.html.

For Paraprofessionals
The website for the National Resource Center for Paraprofession-als (NRCP) includes articles and training materials for and about paraeducators. Paras also can browse the NRCP bookstore, which includes books on special education, teacher-para relationships, and other topics. Go to www.nrcpara.org for more information.

Going the Extra Mile

Minnesota Paraeducators Win State Foundation Grants
The Education Minnesota Foundation for Excellence in Teaching and Learning honored five educational assistants with grants this past spring.

Mary Neiman, Mary DeLuney, Mary Ann Holtzleiter, and Kathleen Serrill from Minneapolis and Danya Troxel from St. Paul each received $1,000 for professional development and training.

Grant recipients must share their training with their local Associations and train other ESPs when possible. This is the third year the Foundation has awarded the Professional Development and Leadership Grants to education assistants and other support professionals.

After her training, Neiman plans to develop a mentor system among the instructional assistants in her school. DeLuney's training will prepare her for a school-based needs assessment that will evaluate the support systems in place for students.

Meanwhile, Holtzleiter, Serrill, and Troxel will learn more about student behavior management.

Finding Faith During Illness
Before she became a paraeducator in 1999, Michigan member Nancy Groves spent 20 years counseling patients dealing with serious illnesses. In January, Patient Press released a new book called Faith and Illness: Reflections on God's Sustaining Love that documents Groves' experiences as a medical social worker.

During her previous career, Groves spent countless hours listening to patients share their internal struggles and fears, so she wrote her book from a patient's point of view.

The book guides people through the many emotions they experience during a serious illness and addresses the adjustments patients and their families often must make, Groves says.

Groves currently works as a teacher assistant at the Learning Resource Center for Special Education at Andover High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Alaska School Nurse Receives Top State Honor
The Alaska School Nurses' Association named Kim Dye, member of the Anchorage Education Association, as the 2002 Alaska School Nurse of the Year.

Dye, who works at Kincaid Elementary School, developed a database program called the Health Office Computer Log to streamline the process used to document health cases in the Anchorage School District. According to Dye, the new program saves hours of work and is more accurate than the previous process.