On Your Side
The More You Learn, The More You Earn

Paraeducators in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are making their work a profession--thanks to collective bargaining and a state law.

If you want to know the hallmarks of a quality paraeducator, just go to experts such as Lynn Bounds, Michele Carter, Michele Geers, and Allyson "Sunny" Story, all teacher associates in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They'll advise you to look for common sense, initiative, communications and prioritization skills, ability to "read" teachers and kids, and unabashed "enthusiasm and joy" over teaching and learning.

When Carter, a special education paraeducator at the preK-1 Grant Early Childhood Center, sits in on a para hiring interview, she probes to discover if the candidate "considers what we do a profession" and exhibits "respect for the teacher's position and the whole [teaching] environment."

If Carter, a 20-year master of her craft, sounds like one tough gatekeeper, in a very real sense she is. In 2000, she belonged to a team of education providers that helped the Iowa Department of Education draft core competence criteria for a law establishing a "multilevel voluntary licensing system" for paraeducators, in every level from "generalist" to "specialist."

Now, should they choose, Iowa districts and individual support professionals can opt for para state certification, a document that proves "we know what we know," says Sunny Story, department chair of the Cedar Rapids Organization of Teacher Associates (CROTA), a unit of the Cedar Rapids Education Association (CREA).

Talk about good timing. The federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, specifies that new paras hired after January 8, 2002, and working in a program supported with Title I funds must have completed at least two years of secondary study, or obtained an associate's (or higher) degree, or met a serious state "standard of quality" and demonstrated specific abilities through a state or local assessment.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa's second largest district, has put two laws together and added up the consequences--all newly hired paras will have to hold state certification.

That's progressive enough, but here's where it gets revolutionary: Through an eight-level salary scale negotiated with CROTA/CREA, Cedar Rapids systematically rewards its teacher associates for earning ever more credits, certificates, and degrees.

Each time a para moves from one skill level up to the next, he or she gets a 2.5 percent pay increase on his or her "individual" base salary. Those raises just keep compounding, and the para never hits the ceiling of some arbitrary "top" step or increment.

"This is called 'looping' and it's modeled after our teacher pay schedule" explains UniServ Director Kathy Krehbiel. "The potential for personal growth is enormous. You go as far as you want and you never stop. As long as you keep learning, you always get a pay increase."

As a result, these education support professionals are slowly but surely moving above fast-food pay. At press time, the lowest paid Cedar Rapids para made $8.56 an hour, the highest, $15.67.

"Our goals are to have teacher assistants earn a living wage, to make this a career choice, and to be able to attract talented people into this profession," stresses Story, a 23-year veteran and one of the first Iowans to earn state para certification.

--Dave Winans

Cedar Rapids Paras: They Make a Difference

If you want to glimpse the future of para education, go to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, an industrial Midwestern city with a very industrious public school system. Its students outperform state and national averages in every category of the ACT test, and its dropout prevention program has produced a 98 percent graduation rate.

This success couldn't happen without a quality teaching force--assisted by paraeducators committed to kids and their own professional growth. Here are some paras you should meet:

• Even before Iowa passed its para certification law in 2000, early childhood paraeducator Michele Carter collaborated with the Grant Wood Area Education Agency and the Iowa Education Network to organize and teach paraprofessional workshops. Now (and she can't believe how quickly) Carter has earned a five-year state Special Needs para certificate at Kirkwood Community College.
  In her work with preschoolers--with physical, emotional, and mental disabilities--at the Title I Grant Early Childhood Center, Carter has reached a professional high. She says her classroom partner, special ed teacher Emily Dolezal, "wants me to use what I have learned and is willing to take suggestions. That makes me comfortable and relaxed.
  "Emily does the planning--the IEPs, the behavior modification plans, the paperwork, the brainwork," this para notes. "I assist in implementing her plans.
  "My duties include small group supervision and routine maintenance," Carter adds. "Teachers have a difficult role, with added hours, and they have to take the job home with them. I can generally leave my job at the door when I leave each day."
  But thanks to her coursework, Carter shares the same vocabulary with Dolezal. "I used to say, 'no, that's not for me.' Now I know what teachers are talking about," says Carter. "And if you understand, you can have input. Now I can help adapt activities for special learning styles, so that all students are working at the skills table together."
• Lynn Bounds is a dropout assistant in the day care center of Metro High School, Cedar Rapids' alternative setting for at-risk students, where she serves as "a 'teacher,' a nursemaid, and a counselor."
  It's an important job--helping teach the preschool children of school staff and teenaged parents, while modeling parenting skills for moms and dads who are kids themselves. It's all part of the school system's philosophy that dropout prevention begins before children even hit kindergarten.
  This teacher associate loves the small scale of Metro and the caring quality of her co-workers, and bursts with pride "over the trust kids have in me to take care of them and the trust parents have in me to do this." Young parents "watch me, to see how I interact with two-year-olds," Bounds adds. "If they have questions, we sit down and talk to them."
  Bounds knows her district's growing commitment to para professional development can help make her an even stronger influence in young lives. And she's ready--like many certified teachers, Bounds maintains a professional file with course completion certificates, staff evaluations, and even a "professional growth record."
  "I enjoy training--you can never get enough tools in your belt," Bounds concludes. "I think training should be mandatory and the district should pay for it."
• Michele Geers already held two tough jobs before taking on a third. She's the mother of six public school students and a teacher associate at Hiawatha Elementary, where she does everything from work with a child with Asperger's Syndrome to perform copying, lunchroom, and clinic duties. And more recently she became an Association activist.
  Geers realizes she may be facing a fourth job, earning course credits to get state para certification, and she contemplates getting trained as a medical first responder and grief counselor. But this outspoken unionist knows that there are only so many hours in a day and that she and many of her ESP colleagues need some sort of relief to get the job training they deserve and need.
  More paid in-service time "would make a lot of people happy," Geers declares. And Central Office indicates that it hears this message--because more than one person is sending it.
  "When we all pull together and and speak with one voice, we make a huge difference," Geers concludes. "You can't beat the union; it has your back. The Association listens to what we say, gets things settled, and keeps us in constant contact with the latest district policies. You can't go without health insurance, and you shouldn't go without job insurance: your union."

--D.W.

On Your Side - CREA: A Local That Makes a Difference

Teacher associates in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are making strides in pay and professional development because they're part of the Cedar Rapids Education Association, an inclusive NEA local affiliate that pushes the envelope.

These ESPs have an equal say with teachers in CREA governance, committee assignments, and relationships with administrators. And they're benefiting from the local's six years of collaborative work with the Cedar Rapids Community School District--in areas such as non-confrontational bargaining and problem solving, remediation for struggling educators, and, soon, professional development.

"Our work relationship with CREA is outstanding, unique, and enlightened," enthuses district Human Relations Director Ann Feldmann. "It takes both sides to give a little, and we get back so much."

And how. Not long ago, the parties sat down and amicably headed off the deficit-driven "surplusing"--layoffs--of more than 76 new teachers by negotiating "an enriched separation package" that enticed 114 veteran teachers to retire early.

The union and district then split the salary savings for needs such as budget relief, teacher and ESP salary increases, qualifications-based pay adjustments for veteran paras, and a skills-based salary schedule for teacher associates.

Paras and teachers in Cedar Rapids and across Iowa have another strong NEA affiliate "at their back": the Iowa State Education Association. "We're working behind the scenes with the Iowa Department of Education as it prepares to implement the Elementary and Secondary Education Act," reports ISEA staffer Lana Oppenheim Schlapkohl. "And we're preparing to implement programs that help our para members achieve state certification, and working with DOE to offer assistance to pass whatever tests are required under ESEA."

For more on how they do things in Cedar Rapids, contact CREA President Gary Anhalt at ganhalt@cr.k12.ia.us or CROTA Department Chair Sunny Story at astory@esc.cr.k12.ia.us. And visit this NEA local affiliate's website at www.creaonline.org.