The variety of classroom assistants who present additional assist to college students with disabilities in Chicago Public Colleges has greater than doubled previously decade, in response to district staffing information.
That development has occurred because the share of scholars with disabilities has additionally elevated in CPS.
However the position and the ranks of those assistants is below scrutiny as the college district grapples with tighter budgets and is locked in a labor dispute that advocates fear may result in worse providers and care for youngsters with the very best wants.
The labor dispute — between Service Workers Worldwide Union Native 73 and Chicago Academics Union — is over a CTU proposal to permit the trainer assistants that union represents to be assigned to offer extra assist to college students with disabilities, a job traditionally represented by SEIU. The variety of particular schooling classroom assistants, or SECAs, represented by SEIU have grown previously 5 years, whereas the variety of trainer assistants, or TAs, represented by the CTU has dropped previously decade.
On common, SECAs make barely greater than trainer assistants. For instance, this college 12 months, SECAs with out a diploma are making a median $48,338 — about $3,700 greater than lecturers assistants at an identical stage, in response to district information.
Mary Fahey Hughes, a former member of the Chicago Board of Training and longtime advocate of scholars with disabilities, mentioned the SECAs who labored together with her son Aidan had been important to his improvement as a scholar with autism in CPS. Individuals change into SECAs particularly to work with college students with disabilities and acquire particular expertise and coaching alongside the way in which in working with high-needs college students, she mentioned.
“I perceive that it have to be terrible to be a lecturers assistant and to have labored a few years and to have your place now not be wanted, however I can’t get behind giving SECA jobs to TAs,” Hughes mentioned.
The CTU — historically an in depth ally of the SEIU — mentioned its proposal is supposed to spice up the variety of trainer assistants and supply extra choices of assist for college kids with disabilities, in a district that has traditionally struggled to serve these youngsters. In 2018, the state discovered that the district was systemically failing to offer college students with disabilities with the additional providers they’re legally entitled to and positioned it on a corrective motion plan.
Over the previous few years, SEIU has fought to create guardrails on the job duties of SECAs and develop coaching for the place. The SEIU has characterised CTU’s proposal as “a raid” on its membership and mentioned it could damage the standard of providers offered to college students with disabilities.
SEIU has threatened to sue the district although CPS has to date rejected the CTU proposal. SEIU’s dad or mum union additionally handed a decision earlier this month declaring that it was “below assault” by the CTU. The division between the 2 labor unions may include political fallout for Mayor Brandon Johnson, who received election in 2023 with each monetary and boots-on-the-ground assist from each teams.
Who’re SECAs and TAs?
Assistants can present a variety of wanted additional assist in school rooms and their actual job title might not be apparent to college students and households. However their roles are distinct.
SECAs present additional assist to college students with disabilities and their roles are written into authorized paperwork governing the providers these youngsters are entitled to below federal regulation. Trainer assistants present a variety of extra assist within the classroom and traditionally, the district budgets for them to assist particular packages, comparable to pre-Okay or lowering class dimension, or principals rent them utilizing discretionary funds.
SECAs “help within the instruction, behavioral, and private care wants” of scholars with disabilities, in response to SEIU’s contract. That may imply serving to them with a lesson at school, strolling them to the toilet, and serving to them settle down by taking a stroll within the corridor, however may embody feeding and helping them in utilizing the toilet, educators instructed Chalkbeat.
“I imply, no matter is required for them to be secure and get their instruction,” mentioned Kimberly Weston-Dodd, a longtime SECA at Corliss Excessive College and SEIU delegate.
A scholar with a incapacity sometimes has certainly one of two paperwork that define the extra providers or lodging they’re legally entitled to: an Individualized Training Program, or IEP, or a 504 plan. A baby’s IEP workforce, which features a dad or mum and different college workers, determines if the kid ought to obtain additional assist from a SECA. Based mostly on that info, CPS’s central workplace decides what number of SECAs to allocate for every college, after which principals rent them.
Trainer assistants, in distinction, can present a variety of extra assist to lecturers, comparable to placing up bulletin boards or redirecting a scholar in the event that they get off process.
Thad Goodchild, deputy normal counsel for the CTU, mentioned faculties have additionally, at occasions, used trainer assistants to offer extra assist to college students with disabilities.
SECA jobs have ballooned over the previous decade whereas trainer assistant jobs have dropped, however the explanation why aren’t fully clear.
A decade in the past, the district had simply over 3,000 SECA positions with simply over 200 of them unfilled. Since Dec. 31, 2019, the variety of SECA positions has grown by 65%, with roughly 7,600 positions as of Dec. 31, 2024. Of these jobs, 325 had been unfilled, in response to district information.
On the similar time, the district has opened 225 fewer CTU-protected trainer assistant positions, or about 18% fewer of these jobs than existed proper earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic.
Requested why SECA positions have elevated whereas trainer assistant jobs have dropped, district spokesperson Sylvia Barragan mentioned “the staffing construction has been adjusted to accommodate” the rise in college students with extra wants. District officers additionally mentioned that they used a few of the $2.8 billion it acquired in federal COVID aid {dollars} to rent extra SECAs after figuring out that as certainly one of CPS’s “urgent wants.”
For the reason that 2019-20 college 12 months, the variety of college students with disabilities has grown by about 5%, in response to district information. Nonetheless, the variety of SECA positions grew by a far larger fee: 65% in that very same time interval.
However that huge enhance occurred after the state discovered that the district was systemically failing to offer college students with disabilities with the additional providers they’re legally entitled to, advocates and union officers instructed Chalkbeat. Consequently, the state positioned CPS on a corrective motion plan. Lindsay Document, a spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Training, mentioned hiring extra SECAs was not a part of that corrective plan, which has since been closed.
However earlier than the state’s investigation, many youngsters who wanted SECAs weren’t getting them, mentioned Terri Smith-Roback, a dad or mum of a CPS scholar with a incapacity and longtime advocate who was a part of a coalition that helped spark the state’s investigation. There was additionally “onerous,” time-consuming paperwork required on the time to get extra assist for college kids with disabilities, mentioned Smith-Roback. These points had been highlighted within the state investigation.
“I feel as soon as the inquiry ended, individuals had been in a position to assign SECAs to IEPs with extra skilled discretion and fewer pink tape,” Smith-Roback mentioned.
One elementary college principal, who spoke on situation of anonymity, mentioned he’s seen the altering tradition round IEPs. He mentioned IEP groups are asking for SECAs “rather more liberally” than they did 10 to twenty years in the past. The variety of SECAs at his college — the place enrollment has grown — have greater than quadrupled over the previous decade.
Union dispute began final summer time
The dispute between the 2 unions turned public in December when the Chicago Tribune reported that SEIU was planning to sue CTU. However the roots of it attain again to not less than final summer time.
Final summer time, CPS laid off 240 trainer assistants and roughly 260 SECAs, providing to proceed paying each swimming pools of employees for this whole college 12 months as they looked for jobs in different faculties, in response to officers at each unions. Of the trainer assistants, as many as 140 have landed jobs at different faculties — however a “important quantity” of them have been rehired as SECAs on the similar college, in response to Goodchild, the CTU lawyer.
Round that point final summer time, CTU leaders requested SEIU management if SEIU would give CTU lots of of vacancies that existed for SECA positions, with a purpose to stop trainer assistant layoffs, mentioned Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Native 73. When vacancies exist, laid-off employees can seek for jobs at different faculties.
Goodchild mentioned the union frightened about extra trainer assistants, a lot of whom have supported college students with disabilities sooner or later, shedding work. CTU didn’t need layoffs to “have any destructive affect on both union,” he mentioned.
Palmer mentioned she wished to assist CTU, however realized that sharing these vacancies may imply much less layoff safety for her personal members — the SECAs. So she declined CTU’s request.
On July 17, 2024, CTU filed a grievance with CPS that claimed that the district has been changing trainer assistant jobs into SECAs for years in violation of its contract. It instructed that SECAs ought to solely carry out diapering and toileting duties, and that every one different trainer assistant jobs that had been transformed into SECA jobs be reverted again to trainer assistants.
“The overwhelming majority of the scholars aren’t toileted and fed, so if that’s the factors, we all know our [SECA] numbers would go approach down,” Palmer mentioned.
The grievance additionally demanded that the district’s Workplace for College students with Disabilities not assign SECAs to trainer assistant jobs that don’t have diapering and feeding duties. The union’s contract says the district can not “reclassify” a lecturers assistant as a SECA who doesn’t diaper and feed a toddler.
Chicago Public Colleges declined to touch upon the grievance. SEIU seen the grievance as an influence seize by CTU and an insult to recommend SECAs haven’t any worth past toilet and feeding obligations.
Then, within the fall, as CTU bargained with CPS over its new contract, SEIU turned conscious of a proposal from CTU that may permit principals to decide on between SECAs and trainer assistants to assist college students with disabilities. That raised extra alarm bells for SEIU: Giving principals a selection means they may select trainer assistants, who may do different work across the classroom, and will imply fewer SECAs in faculties, Palmer mentioned.
Goodchild mentioned that “after all a part of the purpose is to extend the variety of trainer assistants” as a result of the lower in trainer assistants “has had damaging impacts for college kids and faculties and educators.”
What does it seem like on the bottom?
Whereas SECA roles are extra outlined on paper, their roles inside faculties could be squishier and performance equally to trainer assistants, in response to two elementary college principals who spoke to Chalkbeat.
One principal mentioned she by no means approaches her trainer assistants to assist with private care wants that solely SECAs can do. However her SECAs, like her trainer assistants, are “very keen in a pinch to step in” and assist with extra wants, which come up loads in faculties. SEIU’s contract permits SECAs to assist in emergency conditions.
The opposite principal mentioned whereas 1 / 4 of his SECAs present one-on-one assist to college students with disabilities, others are working with a number of college students, serving to to handle behavioral points or serving to them with a lesson. As scholar wants and enrollment modifications throughout the 12 months, he vacillates between feeling like he doesn’t have sufficient SECAs and feeling like he could have too many.
The enlargement of classroom aides is among the many total development in workers at CPS previously 5 years. District officers proceed to tout greater than 7,000 positions added at a time of declining enrollment. However a lot of that has been doable due to federal COVID aid cash, which is now gone.
Whereas CPS officers say it’s a precedence to maintain the brand new positions, price range cuts might be looming. Including extra trainer assistants may assist cut back class dimension and supply extra assist in faculties, principals have mentioned.
Each lecturers assistants and SECAs want the identical state paraprofessional license with a purpose to work at CPS, which requires not less than an affiliate diploma, 60 semester hours of faculty credit score, or a highschool diploma together with sure passing scores on both a state-approved paraprofessional examination or the ACT WorkKeys Profession Evaluation.
SEIU’s contract says SECAs with 60 semester hours of faculty credit score will need to have taken programs in extreme disabilities. If SECA candidates determine as an alternative to take the state-approved examination, they will need to have labored with youngsters with disabilities for not less than one 12 months.
The expertise SECAs have and the extra coaching they’ll obtain is necessary for correctly serving college students with disabilities, advocates and a principal instructed Chalkbeat. SEIU’s present contract requires CPS to offer SECAs with extra coaching on a variety of points, together with typically working with college students with disabilities, deescalation practices, and the way IEPs work, beginning this July.
“I don’t see the win for college kids in having a cohort of educating assistants that don’t have the coaching, the certification, the need to work with college students with disabilities,” Hughes, the previous board member, mentioned.
Weston-Dodd, the SECA from Corliss, mentioned SECAs like her have gained years of expertise working solely with college students with disabilities and are greatest positioned to serve these youngsters. She additionally mentioned she’s acquired skilled improvement coaching yearly.
Nonetheless, one of many elementary college principals believes that if she wished trainer assistants to get related coaching that SECAs will get, the district wouldn’t say no.
If CTU’s proposal is accepted by the district, advocates for college kids with disabilities, in addition to SEIU, consider principals would have some incentive to decide on trainer assistants since they’ve broader job obligations and are paid much less.
“There’s lots of wants in faculties, and issues occur and there are occasions when it’s, like, ‘I simply want you to be the physique right here for a bit bit,’” mentioned one of many elementary college principals, who emphasised that her SECAs solely work with college students with disabilities, as required. “You may have much more wiggle room with the trainer assistant job description than you do with a SECA job description.”
Nonetheless, that principal mentioned she doesn’t wish to make the choice on who ought to work together with her highest want college students.
The opposite principal believes it’s good that he doesn’t have undue affect on deciding what a scholar with a incapacity wants. However he feels that proper now, “it’s arbitrary” on whether or not the individual offering extra assist to a toddler “has a TA job code or a SECA job code,” as a result of their job can be to do what’s in a toddler’s IEP.
However, he mentioned, he additionally believes that the individual assigned to do the job ought to have higher coaching.
Reema Amin is a reporter masking Chicago Public Colleges. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.