GUILDERLAND — The president of the Teaching Assistant Unit for the Guilderland schools, Christine Govin, told the school board on Tuesday that it was unfair for the district to pay substitute TAs in the comprehensive skills program $25 per hour, causing inequity within the self-contained classrooms for special-needs students.

“The TAs assigned to the CSP classrooms were working alongside subs earning more …,” said Govin. “TAs in the CSP classrooms rightfully spoke up and insisted that they receive equity and I would like to thank all of them for speaking up.”

Later in the meeting, without any discussion, the school board, as it does routinely, unanimously passed a lengthy “personnel agenda,” which had crossed out an item, effective July 1, for paying CSP teaching assistants $25 per hour.

Superintendent Marie Wiles told The Enterprise on Friday that the district would start negotiating with the teaching assistant unit on Monday, Nov. 25, as their contract is up at the end of the school year.

“We’ll probably be at it for weeks and weeks and weeks if not months,” she said of negotiations.

The district has 117 teaching assistants altogether, including 20 who work in the comprehensive skills program.

Wiles told The Enterprise that, while the district struggles to fill many positions — she named custodians, mechanics, bus drivers, and food-service workers among them — filling the posts for teaching assistants in the district’s self-contained classrooms is especially challenging.

Wiles noted that the TAs in self-contained classrooms have to support students throughout the day, dealing with everything from inappropriate behaviors to toileting.

Guilderland is vying with other districts facing the same challenge and needs to keep its pay competitive, Wiles said. The salaries for substitutes, she explained, are not negotiated as other salaries are. 

The decision was made to raise the pay to $25 per hour in hopes of attracting retired TAs to come back to work, she said.

When the permanent TAs assigned to the self-contained classrooms were not earning as much, Wiles said, “That caused hurt feelings. We suggested looking at raising hourly rates for TAs permanently assigned in those settings. It didn’t go over well.”

Govin told the school board, “The solution posed by the district office has caused more difficulties. The offer of increasing the base wage of all CSP TAs to $25, while generous, would constitute a percent increase like nothing ever negotiated in our union’s history.

“For some, it would be a 31 percent raise. It could be the equivalent of moving a TA from step one to step 20 immediately. We have TAs that have spent their entire career moving up the steps schedule, working 20 years to get to that step.”

Govin also said, “The fact that the new sub pay rate did not generate the result that it was looking for to keep the CSP rooms fully staffed, we voted to ask for the removal of the $25 CSP TA sub rate completely, but we had to decline the offer to raise the base wage of all to $25 an hour.”

The regular rate for substitutes in the district is $20 per hour, Wiles said.

The current contract includes a step schedule, delineating the salary raises that TAs get for each year they work for the district. TAs in their first year, on Step 1, earn $19.14 per hour, increasing each year until they reach Step 20 at $24.66 per hour.

Those who are “off-step” got a 4.5-percent increase this year, Wiles said.

Govin told the board of the work done by the TAs in self-contained classrooms, “We know what happens with students kicking, biting, punching, threatening, spitting on TAs. We know what the teachers feel like having to go in every day, knowing they’re going to face that. Many in our unit support a higher wage being paid to TAs in the CSP assignment. However, there are TAs that work in one-to-one assignments that experience the same abuse due to extreme student behaviors …. All of our assignments are not created equal.”

Wiles agreed that “it is a challenge” to work with students who have “really significant needs.”

She went on “We have a high obligation to keep those children safe … There’s a real tension there."

While parents last year spoke to the school board about difficulties their special-needs students faced transitioning from the middle school to the high school, none of them said their children were unsafe at school. Rather, their concerns focused on the lack of inclusion, the sense of isolation their children felt.

In coming to the high school, Wiles said this week, those students were leaving behind the teams that had supported them at the middle school as they moved into a “much bigger building” and a different environment with new challenges.

“Those students are doing great this year,” she said.

The district is focusing now on challenges at the elementary level; Guilderland has five elementary schools. For years, Altamont Elementary had hosted three self-contained classrooms of special-needs students.

This year, a fourth self-contained classroom was added: two are at Guilderland Elementary and two at Pine Bush Elementary School.

The reason for the switch, Wiles said, is “Altamont is so small.” She said, “The two larger buildings provide an opportunity for mainstreaming … and it keeps students from being on the bus quite so long.”

Govin told the school board, “Many CSP TAs are dissatisfied with this decision made by the TA Rep Council. It is causing a great deal of turmoil in our unit as they seem to think that the council does not accept the reality of the difficulty of the CSP assignment. That is not the case. However, increases should be negotiated with input from members and with a proper process between the unit and the district office.”

She went on, “Actions beyond our control created the situation and the decision our Rep Council made in good conscience with the intent to be fair to our membership has caused division, anger, disappointment, and resentment. We appreciate your concern that CSP TAs will be properly compensated. All members of our unit need to be properly compensated with wages decided on through negotiations.”

Wiles concluded, “We’re really delighted to have the opportunity to serve all students, each and every one of them.”

She conceded how difficult it is to work with severely needy students. “It’s challenging to have enough staff suited to deal with and embrace those challenges. It takes a special person … There’s no down time. It’s a very special calling.”

Wiles named the many people who work in the self-contained classrooms along with teaching assistants: teachers, social workers, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and physical therapists.

“Thank God for them,”said Wiles.