The variety of classroom assistants who present additional help to college students with disabilities in Chicago Public Colleges has greater than doubled prior to now decade, in line with district staffing knowledge.
That progress has occurred because the share of scholars with disabilities has additionally elevated in CPS.
However the function and the ranks of those assistants is underneath scrutiny as the college district grapples with tighter budgets and is locked in a labor dispute that advocates fear may result in worse companies and care for kids 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 supply extra help to college students with disabilities, a job traditionally represented by SEIU. The variety of particular training classroom assistants, or SECAs, represented by SEIU have grown prior to now 5 years, whereas the variety of trainer assistants, or TAs, represented by the CTU has dropped prior to now decade.
On common, SECAs make barely greater than trainer assistants. For instance, this college 12 months, SECAs and not using a diploma are making a median $48,338 — about $3,700 greater than academics assistants at the same degree, in line with district knowledge.
Mary Fahey Hughes, a former member of the Chicago Board of Training and longtime advocate of scholars with disabilities, mentioned the SECAs who labored along with her son Aidan have been vital to his improvement as a pupil with autism in CPS. Folks develop into SECAs particularly to work with college students with disabilities and achieve particular expertise and coaching alongside the best way in working with high-needs college students, she mentioned.
“I perceive that it have to be terrible to be a academics 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 help 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 supply college students with disabilities with the additional companies 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 broaden coaching for the place. The SEIU has characterised CTU’s proposal as “a raid” on its membership and mentioned it might damage the standard of companies offered to college students with disabilities.
SEIU has threatened to sue the district although CPS has up to now rejected the CTU proposal. SEIU’s guardian union additionally handed a decision earlier this month declaring that it was “underneath 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 spread of wanted additional assist in school rooms and their precise job title might not be apparent to college students and households. However their roles are distinct.
SECAs present additional help to college students with disabilities and their roles are written into authorized paperwork governing the companies these youngsters are entitled to underneath federal regulation. Trainer assistants present a spread of extra help within the classroom and traditionally, the district budgets for them to help particular packages, corresponding to pre-Ok 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 line with 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 also embrace feeding and aiding them in utilizing the toilet, educators advised Chalkbeat.
“I imply, no matter is required for them to be protected and get their instruction,” mentioned Kimberly Weston-Dodd, a longtime SECA at Corliss Excessive College and SEIU delegate.
A pupil with a incapacity sometimes has one in every of two paperwork that define the extra companies or lodging they’re legally entitled to: an Individualized Training Program, or IEP, or a 504 plan. A toddler’s IEP staff, which features a guardian and different college employees, determines if the kid ought to obtain additional help 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 spread of extra help to academics, corresponding to placing up bulletin boards or redirecting a pupil in the event that they get off job.
Thad Goodchild, deputy basic counsel for the CTU, mentioned colleges have additionally, at instances, used trainer assistants to supply extra help to college students with disabilities.
SECA jobs have ballooned over the previous decade whereas trainer assistant jobs have dropped, however the the reason 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 have been unfilled, in line with district knowledge.
On the identical 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 number of the $2.8 billion it acquired in federal COVID aid {dollars} to rent extra SECAs after figuring out that as one in every 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 line with district knowledge. Nonetheless, the variety of SECA positions grew by a far higher price: 65% in that very same time interval.
However that huge enhance occurred after the state discovered that the district was systemically failing to supply college students with disabilities with the additional companies they’re legally entitled to, advocates and union officers advised Chalkbeat. Because of this, the state positioned CPS on a corrective motion plan. Lindsay File, 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 guardian of a CPS pupil 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 have been highlighted within the state investigation.
“I feel as soon as the inquiry ended, individuals have been in a position to assign SECAs to IEPs with extra skilled discretion and fewer crimson tape,” Smith-Roback mentioned.
One elementary college principal, who spoke on situation of anonymity, mentioned he’s observed 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 season
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 a minimum of final summer season.
Final summer season, CPS laid off 240 trainer assistants and roughly 260 SECAs, providing to proceed paying each swimming pools of staff for this complete college 12 months as they looked for jobs in different colleges, in line with officers at each unions. Of the trainer assistants, as many as 140 have landed jobs at different colleges — however a “important quantity” of them have been rehired as SECAs on the identical college, in line with Goodchild, the CTU lawyer.
Round that point final summer season, CTU leaders requested SEIU management if SEIU would give CTU lots of of vacancies that existed for SECA positions, so as to forestall trainer assistant layoffs, mentioned Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Native 73. When vacancies exist, laid-off staff can seek for jobs at different colleges.
Goodchild mentioned the union anxious about extra trainer assistants, lots of whom have supported college students with disabilities sooner or later, shedding work. CTU didn’t need layoffs to “have any unfavourable affect on both union,” he mentioned.
Palmer mentioned she needed 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 have been transformed into SECA jobs be reverted again to trainer assistants.
“The overwhelming majority of the scholars are usually not toileted and fed, so if that’s the standards, 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 academics assistant as a SECA who doesn’t diaper and feed a baby.
Chicago Public Colleges declined to touch upon the grievance. SEIU considered the grievance as an influence seize by CTU and an insult to recommend SECAs don’t have 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 will enable principals to decide on between SECAs and trainer assistants to help college students with disabilities. That raised extra alarm bells for SEIU: Giving principals a alternative means they might select trainer assistants, who may also do different work across the classroom, and will imply fewer SECAs in colleges, Palmer mentioned.
Goodchild mentioned that “in fact 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 colleges and educators.”
What does it seem like on the bottom?
Whereas SECA roles are extra outlined on paper, their roles inside colleges may be squishier and performance equally to trainer assistants, in line with 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 quite a bit in colleges. SEIU’s contract permits SECAs to assist in emergency conditions.
The opposite principal mentioned whereas 1 / 4 of his SECAs present one-on-one help 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 pupil wants and enrollment modifications through the 12 months, he vacillates between feeling like he doesn’t have sufficient SECAs and feeling like he could have too many.
The growth of classroom aides is among the many total progress in employees at CPS prior to now 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, finances cuts could possibly be looming. Including extra trainer assistants may assist cut back class dimension and supply extra help in colleges, principals have mentioned.
Each academics assistants and SECAs want the identical state paraprofessional license so as to work at CPS, which requires a minimum of 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 should have taken programs in extreme disabilities. If SECA candidates determine as an alternative to take the state-approved examination, they should have labored with youngsters with disabilities for a minimum of one 12 months.
The expertise SECAs have and the extra coaching they’ll obtain is vital for correctly serving college students with disabilities, advocates and a principal advised Chalkbeat. SEIU’s present contract requires CPS to supply SECAs with extra coaching on a spread 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 will 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 finest 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 needed 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, imagine principals would have some incentive to decide on trainer assistants since they’ve broader job obligations and are paid much less.
“There’s plenty of wants in colleges, and issues occur and there are occasions when it’s, like, ‘I simply want you to be the physique right here for just a little bit,’” mentioned one of many elementary college principals, who emphasised that her SECAs solely work with college students with disabilities, as required. “You have got 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 need to make the choice on who ought to work along with her highest want college students.
The opposite principal believes it’s good that he doesn’t have undue affect on deciding what a pupil with a incapacity wants. However he feels that proper now, “it’s arbitrary” on whether or not the individual offering extra help to a baby “has a TA job code or a SECA job code,” as a result of their job could be to do what’s in a baby’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 overlaying Chicago Public Colleges. Contact Reema at [email protected].
