Mon Sep 19, 2011 at 05:56:10 PM EDT
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| Last Tuesday, in a Hunterdon elementary school, there was an accident involving a 5-year-old child, a kindergarten special education student. The incident involved a new employee, a Teacher's Aide hired after the school district outsourced every one of 62 Teacher's Aides following Chris Christie's massive cuts to public education last year.
I'm not allowed to tell you the specifics of what happened to the child - yet. Suffice it to say if you knew what the Teacher's Aide (now fired) did, you would be horrified. I'm happy to report the child is alright, and the parents, forgiving. But a vulnerable child was endangered, and the outcome could have been much, much worse. The TA should have reported the incident - to the teacher, the nurse, the principal. She told nobody. We only know what happened because a lunch aide saw the whole thing. And told.
Worse, teachers and community members warned about the risk of an incident like this when the decision was made last year to outsource TA's to a contract paying less, with zero benefits. Some of the TA's had worked for the District for more than 20 years, attending to the children in their care from grade to grade, one-on-one or in small groups (depending on the need) and knowing their kids - their temperaments, their physical needs, learning styles, habits, and what makes them most comfortable so their learning is optimized. It was, till outsourcing, a job good enough that encouraged the longevity of many of the TA's.
This is a political story. Tell you why after the jump: |
| Rosi Efthim :: Meeting Tonight in Flemington: One Local Impact of Christie Defunding Education |
| Think about the money: Outsourcing definitely saved money - about $1 million. But had the outcome of this accident been different, a lawsuit might have been devastating to the district (and of course, it is the child and not the money that matters most here).
Expect this to come up in a meeting tonight at JP Case Middle School Auditorium, Case Blvd and Voorhees Corner Road just outside Flemington - at 7pm. Open to the public.
Massive cuts to public education - and the choice to bomb out on major federal grants just to continue a street fight with the teachers' union - have real costs. Costs not just to the NJEA, whose leaders the Governor so reviles, but costs to students. Sometimes the most vulnerable students, which is what Special Ed students often are.
I think you can make the point - I think I'll hear it tonight - that the local school Super's priorities are fair game for criticism, too. Flemington-Raritan's School Superintendent Gregory Nolan, in his first superintendent gig and only a year on the job, made his cuts in a way that almost certainly affects students - against a promise to the community not to. So many ramifications here:
Many of the teachers knew firing all the TA's at once would create problems, and possible risks to vulnerable kids. But they weren't listened to. Did an atmosphere created by the Governor of encouraging the community to distrust teachers contribute to their failure to get Nolan to reverse this decision?
Adminstrators at each school also anticipated problems, and according to reports from teachers and the community, did everything they could to shave their own office budgets to prevent the loss of TA's. Nolan made that decision anyway.
All of the TA program's 'institutional memory' was lost - all at once and for almost ever child in every school. Students with highly individualized needs - academic needs, behavioral, self-care - their old TA's knew and were used to working with, were suddenly put in situations with people who may never have dealt with children before, much less vulnerable Special Ed kids.
Special Ed teachers used to be able to match children, with their highly individualized needs, to aides the teacher thought would be the best fit. Then the aides developed relationships that often lasted years, through several grades of being accompanied by those aides to classes. Now teachers are matching children to strangers, and worse, there's hardly anyone with TA longevity who can help the new aides acclimate to work with students. Because everybody's new.
The teacher of this 5-year-old, who the TA failed to report the incident to, happens to be one of the more outspoken about how the loss of TA's might affect the children: "We were promised that the new TA's would be well-trained and highly qualified. But what we got was people doing on-the-job training. All at once."
And this teacher, while incensed at the "avoidable" risk to students, is also somewhat sympathetic to the new aides: "They're caught in an economic situation they didn't choose either."
I'll update when I know more. |
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