Womaxx gave her notice.

[maddmaxx ★]

Remember she signed up to be a substitute paraprofessional for the special ed department at our local high school while the regular was away for medical reasons.  Well, the regular never came back.  She used her medical leave to find another job.  So here womaxx is working full time for para pay with some very difficult students who get physical and routinely have meltdowns, even for strange noises.  Some of these students are older than regular high school kids and they are a handful.  She's working till the end of the month and that's all.  The town seems to be unable to hire paras.  The pay is much too low, well under minimum wage for the hours worked because there is a contract controlling pay levels.  Now we have a teacher shortage and an assistant teacher shortage.

[JerrySTL ★]

It's a shame that they don't pay enough to attract people to the job.

[maddmaxx ★]

4 minutes ago, JerrySTL said:

It's a shame that they don't pay enough to attract people to the job.

The population votes against taxes and that's what pays the school staff.

[Longjohn ★]

3 minutes ago, JerrySTL said:

It's a shame that they don't pay enough to attract people to the job.

That is the number one reason there are help wanted signs everywhere. If you pay enough someone will take the job.

[Airehead ★]

Paras are definitely underpaid. There is a national shortage. 

[Kzoo]

2 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

So here womaxx is working full time for para pay with some very difficult students who get physical and routinely have meltdowns, even for strange noises.  Some of these students are older than regular high school kids and they are a handful.

So take about 18 of those kids a put them on a school bus twice a day and drive them down the road at 50 mph.  Now you have WoKzoo’s job.  She is punched, has stuff thrown at her and has wrestling matches (restraining events so other kids don’t get hurt) on a regular basis and still has to control a large moving vehicle.

She never leaves the bus lot without the video camera working.

[maddmaxx ★]

1 hour ago, Airehead said:

Paras are definitely underpaid. There is a national shortage. 

I do not know how you folks do what you do for so many years.  Womaxx was a para for a couple of years before she moved on to be an office professional.  I was briefly one between jobs but neither of us worked with students this difficult and we were a great deal younger.

[shootingstar]

3 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

Remember she signed up to be a substitute paraprofessional for the special ed department at our local high school while the regular was away for medical reasons.  Well, the regular never came back.  She used her medical leave to find another job.  So here womaxx is working full time for para pay with some very difficult students who get physical and routinely have meltdowns, even for strange noises.  Some of these students are older than regular high school kids and they are a handful.  She's working till the end of the month and that's all.  The town seems to be unable to hire paras.  The pay is much too low, well under minimum wage for the hours worked because there is a contract controlling pay levels.  Now we have a teacher shortage and an assistant teacher shortage.

She has given well, maddmaxx. 

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

3 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

The population votes against taxes and that's what pays the school staff.

Perhaps the problem isn't the population voting against taxes but it is instead that the money that the school system does get is not allocated as it should be, i.e., towards paying paraprofessionals at at proper level so students with unique needs receive a higher quality education.

[Airehead ★]

13 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

I do not know how you folks do what you do for so many years.  Womaxx was a para for a couple of years before she moved on to be an office professional.  I was briefly one between jobs but neither of us worked with students this difficult and we were a great deal younger.

I loved my students but moved to admin when I knew my shoulder could not weather one more incident. Funny though, it is my thumb, broken long ago that gives me the most trouble. My shoulder gives me very little. 

[maddmaxx ★]

16 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

Perhaps the problem isn't the population voting against taxes but it is instead that the money that the school system does get is not allocated as it should be, i.e., towards paying paraprofessionals at at proper level so students with unique needs receive a higher quality education.

Being as this is a starter town that routinely looses teachers to higher paying towns as well as paras to other jobs I can assure you that the school budget is far too small.   Too much of the budget is absorbed by the new town management that brought in some expensive professional managers and their assistants.  They were elected on the promise of less taxes.  

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

21 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Too much of the budget is absorbed by the new town management that brought in some expensive professional managers and their assistants.

Well, then to me it sounds as if the expensive professional managers and assistants should be let go to free up some money to better pay the people who are interacting directly with the students - which kind of goes along with my point of the money being allocated improperly.

[MickinMD ★]

7 hours ago, JerrySTL said:

It's a shame that they don't pay enough to attract people to the job.

The typical teacher in the USA starts out making less than their districts starting garbage collectors and the avg. teacher works 200 hrs/yr. more than the avg. full-time worker.  When there's a recession, teachers often go 3-4 years without a raise until their jurisdiction recovers, then get a 12% to 15% raise to catch them up to the rest of the workforce with no back catch-up pay, and people see that and complain they're paid too much.

The parents and courts have taken away almost all authority teachers have in the classroom, but still require them to be responsible in loco parentis, as the equivalent of parents.  The gifted kids I taught who came from other cultures, particularly our 8% Korean and first-generation Korean American kids, were so appalled by American Teenager behavior to their teachers, etc. that they said they'd NEVER become teachers and I can't think of any that did.

[maddmaxx ★]

8 hours ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

Well, then to me it sounds as if the expensive professional managers and assistants should be let go to free up some money to better pay the people who are interacting directly with the students - which kind of goes along with my point of the money being allocated improperly.

I can't speak to that as it's a political situation playing out across the country.

[Longjohn ★]

14 hours ago, Airehead said:

I loved my students but moved to admin when I knew my shoulder could not weather one more incident. Funny though, it is my thumb, broken long ago that gives me the most trouble. My shoulder gives me very little. 

My few years working as a volunteer with special needs young people I only had one broken rib and lots of scratches from fingernails. I generally only had one person at a time to deal with. A room full of them I can’t even imagine.

[Razors Edge ★]

14 hours ago, Airehead said:

I loved my students but moved to admin when I knew my shoulder could not weather one more incident. Funny though, it is my thumb, broken long ago that gives me the most trouble. My shoulder gives me very little. 

Probably don't really need your position, though?  Trim your spot and your bloated salary, and hire what...two or three critical teachers in your place?

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

After all we've seen regarding how dedicated Aire is to her vocation and to the children at her school, it's amazing that you would raise the concept - even in jest - that she's superfluous to the education of those students.