Ko Lyn Cheang photo
Paraprofessionals Albert Alston and Hyclis Williams at recent protest.
The Board of Alders all-but-unanimously approved a new four-year paraprofessionals union contract that will see entry-level members get a roughly $1,000 raise by 2023.
Local legislators took that vote Monday night during their latest regular bimonthly full board meeting. That virtual gathering was held online via Zoom and YouTube Live.
With one abstention from Annex Alder Jody Ortiz, who is a paraprofessional in the city school system, all of the other alders present voted in support of approving the new contract between the city’s Board of Education and the union, known as Local 3429.
The new deal covers July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2023. Edgewood Alder and Finance Committee Chair Evette Hamilton said Monday that the overall monetary increase over the four years of the contract is just under $1.2 million.
The aldermanic vote comes three months after the Board of Education approved the labor accord in a split 4 – 3 decision, and four months after union members ratified the deal in June. Some paras have criticized that ratification process, which took place over Zoom and which saw only 87 out of the roughly 450 total paras participate in the vote.
Paraprofessionals include unlicensed assistant teachers, special education and ESL aides, parent liaisons, outreach workers, and Head Start teachers. They are among the city’s lowest-paid employees.
The new contract will see the salary for entry-level paras increase from $22,313 as of the 2019 – 2020 school year to $23,397 by 2022 – 23. Paras who have reached the fourth-step of the union’s salary schedule, the highest such step included in the contract, would see their salaries increase from $28,370 to $30,343 over the course of the four-year deal. The new contract will also cause health premiums to increase by 2 percentage points over the life of the deal.
Click here and here to read more about the contract.
Yale $ Accepted For New Sidewalk
Thomas Breen photo
Pearl Street looking towards SOM.
The alders also all-but-unanimously voted Monday night in support of accepting $50,000 from Yale University to help fund the construction of a new sidewalk on the northern side of Pearl Street between Orange Street and the back entrance to the Yale School of Management (SOM).
“This project will improve public safety on this important pedestrian gateway to the campus,” said Beaver Hills Alder and Community Development Committee Chair Brian Wingate.
He said that the city will contribute roughly $40,000 from its sidewalk bond fund, and that that capital allocation has already been approved by the city Resources Allocation Committee.
Downtown Alder Abby Roth noted that her constituents in that stretch of East Rock have long expressed concerns to her, to Yale, and to the city about safety on this block because of the “dangerous convergence” of cars, pedestrians, and cyclists. She said that SOM’s back walkway feeds directly into the middle of Pearl Street, and cars often zip along Lincoln Street to avoid congestion near the Exit 3 highway on-ramp at Orange Street and Trumbull Street.
In Feb. 2019, a SOM student named Katherine Cattanach was struck by a car and injured at that very intersection of Pearl and Lincoln. Lincoln Street neighbors successfully petitioned the city’s traffic authority to install new stop signs at that intersection later that year.
Roth abstained from the vote because she works for Yale. All of the other alders present voted in support.
