Harries: Add “accountability.”
In the wake of a study showing income inequality growing faster in New Haven than in any other U.S. city, Mayor Toni Harp Monday called for government to help lift the wages of workers on the lower rungs — specifically, school paraprofessionals.
Harp called for raising the starting annual salaries of the paraprofessionals from $18,000 to between $25,000 and $30,000. She said she has “pushed” Superintendent of Schools Garth Harries to include that raise in the upcoming proposed new fiscal year school budget, and to find that money elsewhere rather than have the city seek a tax increase to pay for it.
“It’s a big raise. But that’s deserved for what they do,” Harp said during her weekly “Mayor Monday” appearance on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
She put the requested raise in the context of a new Brookings Institution study showing that the gap between high and low earners in New Haven has increased by 6.7 times over the past seven years. An activist group called New Haven Rising has called on Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital to address the gap by hiring more New Haveners for living-wage jobs.
Harp said on the radio program that city government needs to step up as well.
“New Haven Rising resonates with people [because] they are concerned with the unemployed, but as well with the underemployed,” Harp said. “I have to respond. The city of New Haven has to respond.”
“One of the things that really concerns me is paraprofessionals at the Board of Education. They start out at $18,000 a year,” Harp said. “Who can live on that? But we have people to do that, go to school every day, work with our kids. Some have bachelor’s degrees. Some have master’s degrees. That’s all they make.”
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Harp at the Board of Ed.
Harp said that during a recent curriculum review, she heard from teachers citywide that they need more help in the classroom, which paraprofessionals provide, enabling teachers to remain focused on the rest of the class, for instance, if one or a handful of students require special attention, or if students work at different levels.
The system employs 483 paraprofessionals, according to Michael Crocco, director of the school district’s talent office. They cover all the kindergarten and first grade classes as well as special ed.
Superintendent Harries said in an interview that he’s on board for requesting the paraprofessional raises in the soon-to-be-released budget proposal for the coming fiscal year. “It’s a step forward toward professionalizing that workforce,” he said. He added that he plans to seek to combine the raises with requests for “flexibility” on work rules, more professional development for paras, and accountability — “encouraging high performance” with the ability to “address when it’s not.”
Also during the “Mayor Monday” WNHH radio program, Harp explained her administration’s evolving plans to set rules, and institute some licensing fees, for mobile food operators. She defended her position in the ongoing dispute with the Board of Alders over the size of the Board of Education — and recalled how last week was not the first time she has been sued in an education dispute. Last week the Board of Alders sued the Board of Education over its decision not to comply with an alder vote to remove a member. Back in the 1980s, when she was an alder, Harp led a fight to get more budget information out of the Board of Ed; the Board of Ed sued the alders over funding levels for the schools.
Click on or download the above sound file to hear the entire “Mayor Monday” episode. The segment about school paraprofessionals and income inequality begins at 40:13.
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Monday’s episode of “Dateline New Haven” was made possible in part through financial support from Gateway Community College.
I'm all for the raise!!! But paraprofessionals NEED to be evaluated- there's a significant amount of dead weight in the current pool.