Parents upset over restructuring aide job for autism students

The Morgan Hill Unified School District school board voted unanimously Tuesday night to restructure all aides within the district into a new position. This new position, called a paraprofessional, would see a 5-percent salary increase compared to the current instructional aide position, but at the expense of the paraeducators, who will see a 30-percent cut in their salary.
Parents of special needs students, however, fear that these changes will drastically affect the quality of education their child is currently receiving. Many shared their fears with the board, giving emotional pleas to reconsider their decision.
“Many aides are not qualified to work with more severe cases of autistic children. This means that they would struggle to keep control over them and help them with their learning,” said Deborah Gustlin, one of many mothers that showed up to the board meeting who has a child in the district’s Autism Spectrum Disorder program.
Vicki Herrick, another mother of a severely autistic child, continuously wept at the podium as she shared the story with the board of her daughter’s recent regression.
“You have torn my family apart, and I feel like a shell of myself now because my daughter has regressed so much from earlier this year.  The help these (paraeducators) were giving her were making a huge difference, but now that she has lost that help, she does not even talk anymore,” Herrick said.
Ron Woolf, president of the school board, said he understood the concerns of the parents, and wanted to assure them that none of the funding for any of the special education needs programs was being touched.
“I want to make sure everyone realizes the ASD program is staying intact, and we are not reducing any aide positions within the district. This reclassification is purely an equity and alignment issue,” he said.
Changes to state and national laws within the last several years caused certification requirements of instructional aides to increase, while many of the unique roles paraeducators filled within the school district were no longer needed. As a result, the two groups of employees have similar responsibilities, but are being paid drastically different salaries.  
“It’s not the best results for everyone, but it had to be done,” said Daniele Nunes, Chapter Chair for the Service Employees International Union that represents the aides within the school district.  “It was recognized five years ago that the (paraeducator) position was no longer needed, and the decision to reorganize the position was made.”
Their ranks have slowly dwindled since then, from as many as 29 paraeducators in 2007 down to just the seven employed currently. These seven, however, now face the prospect of losing almost one-third of their pay starting in March of 2013.
Laura Castro, one of the paraeducators, spoke openly to the board, reminding them of the special training and classes they have taken to work with children with moderate to severe cases of autism.  
“I am tired of reminding everyone here of the work we do.  We may not be important to you, but we are important to the kids we work with every day,” said Castro as she ended her remarks to the board.
Woolf has a different perspective.
“Our educational aides do just as good of a job as the paraeducators.  Many have similar training and experience as them, and work just as hard,” he said, “and, it’s not that we don’t value what they do, it’s that we value what all of our aides do.”
Nancy Becknall, an instructional aide who attended the meeting as well, added, “There are already instructional aides teaching within those (ASD) classes, side-by-side with the paraeducators.  They do, and have been doing, the same job the others have been doing for awhile now, and at the lower pay the rest of us all get.”
All of this does not alleviate the fears that concerned parents still have as they wonder what the future will bring for special education programs within the district.
“The kids do not have time for aides to learn on the job,” said Lena Pyne, another concerned parent at the meeting, “and you can’t tell me we will be able to hire aides as well-qualified as ones we have now with the cuts to their salary. How many of you would do their job for the dollars an hour, and do it as well?”