DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa. — Gerren Wagner’s son gets specialized education at Central Dauphin School District. She says the lack of paraprofessional aides in the district is hurting her son’s education goals.
“He had a rate of about eight to 10 new mastered targets every week," Wagner said. "During the past two months, now that his school has been understaffed, he's only been mastering about 10 targets for the whole school year."
According to the Central Dauphin School District website, the district has more than 95 open positions. More than a third of those are for paraprofessional openings, none of which lists a salary.
Wagner says pay is causing people to leave.
“It’s heart-wrenching that they don't see the value of what paraprofessionals do in the classroom," Wagner said. "They're not willing to pay them what they're worth and our kids are gonna suffer."
The agreed upon collective bargaining agreement between the school district and the union representing paraprofessionals in the Central Dauphin School District established compensation for aides.
The starting pay is $17.49 an hour, though they are only paid for 9 months of work. After taxes, that's less than $20,000 dollars a year.
The issue at Central Dauphin School District highlights the larger shortage of educators nationwide.
In a written statement read at Monday night's school board meeting
“Ten years ago, roughly 20,000 new educators were entering our classrooms each year, but last year, only around 6,000 did so," Pennsylvania Education Secretary Eric Hagarty said. "To make matters worse, the rate at which teachers are leaving the profession is accelerating.”
Hagarty did address other issues and said compensation is not the only factor.
"We hear a lot from educators that there's been a loss of respect for them as professionals," Hagarty said.
But Daymond Wagner says without a change in pay, there won't be a change to the problem.
“Without an increase in the wage I don't see how that's going to decrease," Wagner said. "I see only the openings increasing.”
The district plans to hold multiple employment fairs at the Central Dauphin East High School cafeteria from 9:00 a.m. to noon on the following dates:
November 5, 2022
December 3, 2022
January 7, 2023
February 4, 2023
A full list of open positions within the school district can be found here.