Parents, district employees warn of an exodus of special education staff if pay isn't raised

Jun. 20—Eric Steffen began asking the Madison School District for additional help when his son, Aiden, was in second grade.

Years later, Steffen is still seeking additional help for Aiden, now a sixth-grader with autism, and Steffen is becoming increasingly worried that a looming staffing crisis, coupled with how much special education assistants are paid, could eliminate the support his son has.

"He can escalate super fast and end up having to get multiple staff members to take him away and put him in an office," Steffen said. "Then he won't be able to be in class because he'll have to wait until he settles down and, if there's no one there, who knows how long that will take."

But the district's special education assistants, or SEAs, are currently stretched thin and seeking a $5 an hour raise to address the rising tide of inflation. Aiden's current SEA has to work two jobs to get by, Steffen said.

Madison School District SEAs are classified as hourly employees, and many make less than $20 per hour despite being with the district for years. They're seeking a $5 an hour wage increase ahead of the 2022-23 school year, while teachers are asking for a 4.7% base wage increase. District administration and local teachers union Madison Teachers Inc. are in the midst of negotiations after the district initially offered a 2% base wage increase to teachers at the start of May.

MTI president Mike Jones has warned of an exodus of staff if teachers and hourly employees don't receive the $5 per hour increase or the 4.7% base wage increase which other rural, urban and suburban districts across the state have already approved for teachers.

Contracts returned with caveats

District spokesperson Tim LeMonds said 97.3% of the 2,400 contracts sent out to staff members for the coming school year were returned by Thursday morning.

A number of the contracts returned to the district by staff in June include an addendum that says staff expect a change to the wages — specifically tied to experience and educational attainment, known as steps and lanes — listed on the document, as well as future adjustments to pay, depending on the outcome of negotiations between the district and the union.

School Board members spoke up in support of increasing pay for staff during Monday's meeting and expressed concern with the number of people the district needs to hire ahead of September in order to be fully staffed.

"What we need to do is this, we need to prioritize the $5 an hour and we need to prioritize paying our staff what they're worth, because otherwise we could have the most antiracist, wonderful school district in the world and we won't attract a single teacher, we won't attract a single individual," board member Nicki Vander Meulen said.

"When we look back over the last few months at our HR reports, we're hiring 10 people a month and losing 60, so I have some real concerns about how we're going to leverage this summer to make sure that our schools are staffed fully and to capacity this fall," board President Ali Muldrow said.

Between September and May, the district averaged approximately 26 hires and 75 staff departures each month, according to data provided to the board by the district's human resources department.

The human resources department set a goal to hire 100 substitute teachers and 143 teachers ahead of the 2022-23 school year.

Weighing options

Staff members who returned their contracts are unsure if they're fully committed to working for the district in the coming year.

Maureen Mead, a ninth-grade English teacher at Memorial High School who has worked in the district for more than a decade, turned in her contract but said if she received a "fantastic offer for a job outside of education" it would be hard not to consider it. But, as a single parent with two children in college, she isn't in a position to leave the district in a huff. If she's going to go to a different job, she needs to do so thoughtfully, she said.

This past school year was chaotic and disappointing, starting with a confusing re-entry into school buildings after a year of online-only learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic that set the tone for the rest of the school year. She and colleagues took on overloads, or additional classes outside of what they normally teach, and additional tasks along with subbing on short notice for colleagues who fell ill.

"I know there are classes that went without a person in there, I know that our administrative person who was in charge of that was running her butt off. Every single day there were three or four unfilled positions that she was scrambling to fill," Mead said. "Because we were so short staffed and they didn't hire additional social workers or support staff for students, the kids were beside themselves. It was super sad."

Brandi Whitlock, an SEA who has worked for the district for 10 years, said she gets paid $18.37 an hour to support students with special needs, less than the starting wage at some fast food restaurants.

She said the struggles she and her colleagues experienced over the past school year due to being short staffed coupled with the low wage left them feeling like the district didn't care about its employees.

If the $5 per hour increase is not approved, Whitlock said she will be looking for another job.

"We don't get paid enough to live," she said. "I'm struggling to make it, and if you're single like me, it's hard. The only reason I'm still working for the district is because I love my job and I love my students that I work with."

Sue Frick, an SEA who has been with the district for 20 years, said she gets paid $20 per hour to support the district's most vulnerable students. Her tasks sometimes include changing diapers, tube feeding and supporting students who use wheelchairs.

"I can see a lot of staff members not wanting to do this job anymore" due to the low pay, Frick said. "I love what I do, I love the kids, I love helping, that's all why I stayed. Though this may be my last year."

Oftentimes, SEAs provide comfort and support to vulnerable students who struggle with social regulation issues. SEAs will diffuse tense situations before they result in the student needing to be restrained or secluded. Although, this year, a number of students didn't always receive the services they needed due to staffing struggles, Frick said.

Since Aiden started school, Steffen said, it seemed like the number of SEAs available to work with him has decreased. Aiden's current SEA works with multiple vulnerable students, so she has to bounce around from class to class.

Aiden is academically advanced but struggles with high anxiety and can become overwhelmed during transition periods such as recess, lunchtime or the start or end of the day.

"He has social regulation issues and can get upset and angry or sad pretty easily if something throws him off and if there's no one there who knows him to get him focused or working through calming strategies," Steffen said.

Steffen is worried a lack of increase in hourly wages for SEAs could lead to a number of them leaving the district, and the drop in SEAs could create a domino effect for staffing across the district. An exodus of SEAs could lead to an exodus of teachers due to a decrease in supports for students in their class, he said.

"I don't think our staff would be here if we didn't care about our students. But we also need to be taken care of with better pay and continued mental health days. We can't be our best with our students if we are stressing about how we are going to pay our bills," Whitlock, the SEA, said. "The district will lose a lot of good staff and who will be there for our vulnerable students?"

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