EAST HAVEN

On Nov. 12, East Haven paraeducators who are part of the Connecticut State Employees and Service Employees International Union Local 2001 showed up to a Board of Education (BOE) meeting to demand change in the way their work is valued as a part of the town’s school district, especially for the betterment of the students they support.

Approximately 50 paraeducators in the East Haven Public Schools district stood in unison behind three speakers who addressed to the BOE their long-standing grievances and frustrations regarding the suboptimal conditions in which they work with students, often ones who have special needs. They told the BOE about how these conditions have hindered their ability to work with students in need of support and how the educators themselves often struggle to make ends meet financially.

Hannah Pelligrino, a paraeducator at Deer Run Elementary School, told the BOE that the “the district has been operating with significant shortage in para staffing” and that the turnover rate of paraeducators is “downright brutal.”

“This has created a very difficult situation for those of us who have decided to remain,” said Pelligrino. “But more importantly, it has seriously impaired our ability to provide the care and support that our students deserve and need. Morale is currently very low.”

Pelligrino added that paraeducators have the “impression that this is some sort of throwaway position where the turnover doesn't matter” and that paras who previously departed the district after “weeks, even days” did so because a lack of training in multiple areas of their jobs and the feeling that they were “unsupported, while being given immense responsibility.”

The lack of both adequate training and support from education leaders is felt by Kristen DeMatteo, a paraeducator within the district, as expressed in a statement to The Courier. In the statement, DeMatteo said that the training consists of “being given modules to follow and a stack of paperwork which we are expected to review and complete on our own time.”

DeMatteo said that paraeducators like herself are “being bitten, scratched, punched, kicked, and spit at,” by students in need of school personnel such as herself, adding that “the response from administration is, ‘You must not be doing your job right,’ or ‘Those behaviors should not be happening,’ rather than receiving any support or suggestions.”

“We care deeply for our students and to see them succeed both academically and socially, but cannot do that without the support of the administration,” said DeMatteo.

Pelligrino said that the lack of training is also a concern considering the low payout for paraeducators. Since that role often provides one source of multiple sources of income, district paraeducators who are trying to control a situation involving a special needs student are fearful of being “one misread gesture or word away” from being reprimanded by the Connecticut Department of Children and Families and possibly being terminated from an income source.

“We cannot perform our duties under these conditions. You will not be able to fill the open positions over the long term while making people work under these conditions,” said Pelligrino. “It is not just one or two people who feel that way, as has been suggested. We demand change. We demand respect.”

Demands for change were outlined in their specifics by Angela Catalano, a paraeducator at Joseph Melillo Middle School. They include having salaries for paraeducators starting at $20 an hour and having their training be paid, Catalano stated. She said that paraeducators need “better and more efficient training, at all levels, especially when starting out as new hires.”

“It is not reasonable for a newly hired para to be given a stack of papers, a list of modules, and zero training, then thrown into the job without even explaining what the position entails,” Catalano said.

Catalano also stated on behalf of her fellow district paraeducators that they not be “treated as second class workers” and that the district should pay more attention to their work, rather than having their requests for training modules being met in a “dismissive and incomplete manner,” as she said has occurred.

A closing statement came from Cindy Giametti, the president of the East Haven Paraprofessional Union.

“We will continue to stand together and fight for our students that we educate, care for, and love every day to ensure they are getting the best from us,” she said. “We are stronger together looking forward to the future.”