How many school aides is enough?
Educational assistants in the Stamford, Connecticut, school district are bargaining for a new three-year contract. As reported in today’s Stamford Advocate, more than pay and benefits are at stake: Under dispute is whether or not the district—which decided to cut ten positions—-has enough assistants.
We’re just not going to have the bodies,’ said Cathy Coppola, the union’s president. [The aides belong to the the Educational Assistants of Stamford Association.]
District officials dispute that, saying the posts were vacant because students served by the assistants have left the district or don’t need help anymore. And, after a $5 million cut to the proposed school board budget, the district has no funds to hire more assistants, officials said.
‘Any additional staffing is not likely to happen this year,’ said Jane Anderson, the school system’s interim director of human capital development.
Pay and benefits are the main sticking points in negotiations, Coppola said. The union’s contract expired June 30 and another negotiating session has not been set, Anderson said this week.
The union cites an “influx of special-needs children” as behind the need for more aides; autistic children are particularly cited but not because of the benefits to their learning that a well-trained and properly supervised 1:1 aide can provide, but because they “can be difficult to manage” and because “[s]ome can be rowdy, disrupting class, and inflicting bites and bruises on the assistants.”
Based on our experiences with aides, I have to put in a word for quality training and administrative support as being just as important as the quantity of aides. In our previous school district, where Charlie had a number of behavior problems, the ratio of students to staff was 1:1 and I fear that, despite our every efforts, Charlie ended up being seen as “rowdy,” “disrupting,” and “inflicting bites and bruises.” What is needed is enough aides, and aides with the training they need to best help the students.
10 opinions for How many school aides is enough?
KimJ
Jul 7, 2007 at 3:44 pm
The aides have the most contact and often most of the communication with the parents. They need to be trained just as rigorously as the teachers. One aide in a school my son went to actually provoked my son’s meltdowns and outbursts. I witnessed her harassing my son in front of the other kids for modelling typical behavior. She lied to us repeatedly and when they “trained her” (a 15 minute talk) she refused to comply with the “recommendations”. Somehow, the school sided with her methods and stories and used the experience to show what a bad kid I had. The district does not fund or instruct its aides or special ed teachers to take autism training.
“Managing” autistic students is really a systemic problem, lack of imagination to see that these kids learn differently. It’s a losing situation and can only be remedied by exposing school staff to real autistic training. Explaining and encouraging visual aides/communication, discrete training and basing lessons on strengths not “problems” will actually make school staff’s jobs easier not more cumbersome.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 7, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Hope things have improved in your son’s school situation?
I second all you write—-I do think it is best, and necessary, to be pro-active regarding our kids in school situations, rather than reactive.
Jennifer
Jul 7, 2007 at 4:02 pm
My district is fairly good about hiring aides — I’ve had them add one staff member to my classroom the school year before class when I pointed out that I had so many students and so few aides, I couldn’t do any of the mainstreaming on the kids’ IEPs.
I’ve only requested 1:1 aide assistance for one student — and she should have had it a long time ago for the reasons you list above: not only the safety of others’, but primarily for her own learning, as she still requires 1:1 teaching at all times to be successful (though she is learning to participate in some leisure activities with one or two other kids).
For the rest of my class, the ratio is generally 3 students per adult. Given the mix of children that I have (from the student above through a girl that can read and spell nearly on grade level) that’s been appropriate.
The hardest part for me IS training the aides — my district does not fund aides beyond the kids’ school day — going so far as to have different work hours on early out days — which means that I have no time with them when children are not there…so any training I do MUST take place during the ebb and flow of the day (which often means I deal with crises — model what to do — the first few months of school, or whenever I get a new staff member). That is, of course, complicated by the fact that I don’t talk ABOUT a child IN FRONT of the kid….
Jennifer
Jul 7, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Ack. Ignore the apostrophe after “others” — I just committed my own pet peeve.
KimJ
Jul 7, 2007 at 8:56 pm
After pulling my son out for a quarter, we convinced the district to offer a different school. Surprisingly, it was the best environment for my son. The situation was so much improved that he didn’t even need an aide in the regular ed classroom. The district has no standards, we have failing schools next to nationally recognized models.
The success in my son’s case is that “attitude adjustment” among school staff that I preach of. We’re not out to fix him or make him conform, but accomodate his needs so he can learn and possibly socialize.
JL
Jul 8, 2007 at 2:33 am
Pardon, this post doesn’t precisely answer the question, “How many aides is enough?,” because I view the needs of the students as changing, diverse, and sometimes unpredictable. But, I do offer an insight to my own experiences working as an aide in varying capacities. I have been a 1:1 for two different students and am now a classroom aide. Federal funding has changed recently to provide aide support on an individual basis, leading to a proliferation of 1:1 positions and growth in the overall aide pool.
I personally feel that 1:1 assignments are not very effective because the student (and the aide) all too often becomes dependent on one person, sometimes refuses to work with others, and falls victim to bad habits. Students need to work with many different people to expand their skill set and widen their exposure to different teaching styles. I feel much more engaged as an educator with the flexibility of a classroom position, where I am able to work with a group of students and where I can support and pull back as each of the students’ needs change. If a student has mastered a skill in class, a classroom aide can spend that time helping another student with something else, whereas a 1:1 aide will likely be idling nearby or providing too much support for the student to be truly independent. 1:1 aides may also have a vested interest in keeping themselves “useful” and employed, so student progress may be severely impeded.
In regards to training, I have have come to some conclusions after worked closely with at least 10 other 1:1 or classroom aides and knowing many more in other classroom. Many of these co-workers are middle-to-mature women, mothers who have an intimate connection to a individual with a disability themselves, and they may be older than the teachers, which can create a certain feeling of indignation when be told what to do. Now, not all aides fit this stereotype, and I’ve known some wonderful male aides, but this is what I and some special education teachers I’ve asked have noticed. The hiring requirements differ in each district–it can range from passage of a general skills exam, possession of an high school diploma, or an AA degree in California– though many of veteran aides I’ve met do not have a college education. The low pay in some poor school districts ($9-12/hour in the expensive Bay Area) for part-time work (4-6 hours/day) does not attract a highly-educated applicant pool. There are also many school districts that hire aides on a temporary basis, so no benefits are offered–my own first gig. So, these people are put in charge of the daily management of the student(s)’s schedule and academic progress, sometimes without access to the IEP–this also has happened to me once. It is true that there is far too little formal training for aides, and that the women I’ve observed often make poor decisions by mixing maternalism with education. The one area that needs to be seriously addressed is not making explicit what is appropriate and professional behavior for aides. Too often I see “smothering, ” where personal space is being encroached frequently and the student is treated like a little child, or, loud, emotional outbursts are expressed in response to taking “problem” behaviors personally, sort of like a parent. I do see these issues less with the group of aides in our small wealthy school district. We have had four or five trainings this past year on topics like autism, OT, and socialization with typical peers; not to mention that the assistant superintendent in charge of special education personally attends every one herself. We haven’t had a training, however, on appropriate aide behavior and personal boundaries with students, yet.
I see a real difference when the aides can receive training by specialists, but it is just as important that they have empathy, support, and exchange opportunities from other aides in a forum setting. This is especially integral for 1:1 aides, who often don’t get much of a chance to interact with other staff regularly. Of course, frequent meetings with the teacher and parents are very important, but it takes a powerfully conscious effort to set aside time in a hectic schedule or, do as I do, meet outside of school hours without pay to sit and speak frankly.
How many aides is enough? The answer cannot be determined quantitatively. However, I do believe that teachers and parents will be more able to achieve a streamlined balance of support and need if the aides are trained and effective.
And, yes, PLEASE be pro-active. The more good communication within learning communities, the better.
Harold L Doherty
Jul 8, 2007 at 10:32 am
Proper training of aides is critical in ensuring that autistic school children receive a real education.
Jennifer
Jul 8, 2007 at 2:53 pm
JL — I agree with you on the many drawbacks and pitfalls of “giving” a student a 1:1 assistant (in our district, we call it additional adult assistance), and that’s one of the reasons that the student I spoke of is the first student I’ve asked for aide support for.
And for her, the dependence on one adult IS a specific concern…but she’s also a student that doesn’t perform well at all unless she has a bond with a particular person — so, with her, it’s always this delicate dance of rotating classroom aides while giving her enough time with any particular person to feel a bond with them.
Also, all of my aides — individual adult support or not — are expected to follow the belief that they’re there for everybody; it’s just that if E. needs help, she gets the attention first. Thankfully, all the aides in my classroom have bought into that philosophy, so if E. is ever okay on her own (rare, but it’s happening more and more) or absent, J. (her aide) is either helping other kids or preparing more activities for E, under my direction.
KimJ — my brother (who has Down syndrome) was “given” an aide in his 2nd year of high school (he did not need it, but his high school experience overall was not positive). The same thing happened with her — she reached out to stop him once by grabbing his backpack and when he turned to see what was going on (he’s built like a linebacker — typical DS body but packed with muscle), she tripped down stairs and broke her fingernail — by her OWN account…and yet, he was still suspended.
It’s very difficult to ensure good support for kids — to ensure that they have enough support without having TOO MUCH support. I agree that training is the key — I just wish my district provided time with my aides without kids around so that I could train them properly, instead of the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants and watch-what-I’m-doing type of training I am forced to provide right now.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 8, 2007 at 10:05 pm
JL: I don’t know if there is answer to the question in the post’s title: Certainly the individual needs of each child need to be considered. In my son’s classroom, aides rotate every 30 minutes to work with a different child and a lot of thought about how to fade prompts is considered beforehand—-both in order to lessen the kind of depenence of student on one particular aide that you note.
Caroline
Jul 11, 2007 at 12:45 pm
This subject - properly trained, enthusiastic teaching staff who take direction well - is very important to me. We moved to CT. for the policies on supported inclusion and I have seen it work extremely well. It can be a little like Heaven on earth to have things go well.
HOWEVER, it does not take long before things can fall apart even if the parent is trying to be proactive. Teachers and school districts just assume that if a child is doing well, or not being disruptive, that things are fine.
Often an aid is left to work with the child with no support from other teaching staff, and concepts like cross-training, fostering the child’s independence, and promoting a zero tolerance policy on school bullying for all children are not thought of.
It sounds like a lot of school districts in CT. are being forced to make cuts and this is happening on the backs of children. A special education teacher who is losing staff to cuts may make a child sound really impaired at an IEP meeting in order to keep staff. A District might ’suggest’ another out-of-district placement for a child who needs too much thought and time in order to succeed - in other words, an Individualized Education Plan.
All teaching staff would benefit from proper training (beyond the basket hold) It should be a job requirement much more than certification or a degree. And the school districts should pay for it.
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