Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS pays para educators $17 per hour and special education teachers over $60 per hour. Huge difference in cost and abilities in the position.

I work for MCPS.

I am a special education teacher with a master's degree.

I do not make $60 per hour. Not even close.

But I bet it's a lot more than $17 - a full time (the rare 7 hour) para gets about $22,000 a year. 3 years in with a masters gets you to $60,000 a year.

Night and day.

Anonymous wrote:MCPS pays para educators $17 per hour and special education teachers over $60 per hour. Huge difference in cost and abilities in the position.

I work for MCPS.

I am a special education teacher with a master's degree.

I do not make $60 per hour. Not even close.

Anonymous wrote:This FY19 Reorganization shows how even at the Central Office level, Special Education was gutted. 3 Area Supervisors for the entire school system.

I’ve met ours. She actually attended my child’s IEP meeting. Sat there and watched the IDEA be violated which the MSDE weighed in on two months after. Not sure if she’s bad at her job, doesn’t give a damn about children, or both.

Wait - I thought we needed fewer supervisors and more staff in schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS pays para educators $17 per hour and special education teachers over $60 per hour. Huge difference in cost and abilities in the position.

Paras start at $18.97 per hour, actually; a little more than what was posted above, but definitely much less than teachers make. However, teachers are responsible for IEPs, paperwork, and meetings that the paras don't have to do.

Do special ed paras deserve higher pay than general ed paras? [b]Absolutely, no question. I worked in the Autism program for a short time and every single para had scars to show and stories of the physical injuries they'd endured. There are other programs where students are also physically combative, and those paras deserve to be compensated for what they go through! [/b]

Apparently, in the past, there was a difference in pay between special ed and general ed paras; I'm not sure when that was changed or why. MCPS needs to raise the pay for all support staff if they want to fill the vacancies, though. The children are affected from the lack of support, and the staff is burnt out from having to cover for unfilled positions.

I agree completely. I’m a para in a gen ed classroom, a parent of a special education student, and I worked in an autism classroom for six months. The paras working in self-contained special ed programs deserve higher pay because it is hard physical work. The best paras in those programs have a connection with kids with intense needs - you may not need a graduate degree but you certainly need a skilled, patient caregiver and that describes all of my colleagues in the autism program. I have a masters degree and I couldn’t cut it - it was too physically intense and mentally draining for me. I’m much happier and more useful providing math and reading supports to kids where I am now. I love working with kids but definitely don’t want to work with parents, so I’m happy to be a para and not a teacher.

Anonymous wrote:MCPS pays para educators $17 per hour and special education teachers over $60 per hour. Huge difference in cost and abilities in the position.

Paras start at $18.97 per hour, actually; a little more than what was posted above, but definitely much less than teachers make. However, teachers are responsible for IEPs, paperwork, and meetings that the paras don't have to do.

Do special ed paras deserve higher pay than general ed paras? Absolutely, no question. I worked in the Autism program for a short time and every single para had scars to show and stories of the physical injuries they'd endured. There are other programs where students are also physically combative, and those paras deserve to be compensated for what they go through!

Apparently, in the past, there was a difference in pay between special ed and general ed paras; I'm not sure when that was changed or why. MCPS needs to raise the pay for all support staff if they want to fill the vacancies, though. The children are affected from the lack of support, and the staff is burnt out from having to cover for unfilled positions.

MCPS pays para educators $17 per hour and special education teachers over $60 per hour. Huge difference in cost and abilities in the position.

Anonymous wrote:Now you all mention it. My son has 2 different paraeducator special edu & 1 Special Education Resource RM to execute the special education part of IEP at public K mainstream. He has like 9 hours/week, and I thought they are all special education teachers and they just have different names for job titles. They seem to be stressed out last time I talk to one of them at IEP meeting, and well it could be my son is also handful.

How much is the normal range for special education teacher vs special education paraeducator?

“Normal” in MCPS has slid from children being educated by special education teachers to basically no special education teacher support. MCPS is not meeting the needs of most students with disabilities under those types of practices. A para educator only is required to have a high school diploma so pretty useless except for management of behavior. Paras are not equipped to coteach a class or teach skills on an IEP.

Now you all mention it. My son has 2 different paraeducator special edu & 1 Special Education Resource RM to execute the special education part of IEP at public K mainstream. He has like 9 hours/week, and I thought they are all special education teachers and they just have different names for job titles. They seem to be stressed out last time I talk to one of them at IEP meeting, and well it could be my son is also handful.

How much is the normal range for special education teacher vs special education paraeducator?

Anonymous wrote:Nothing is going to improve with the special education teacher and para shortage until something is done about salaries. As someone earlier posted, compensation is a joke for paras. Even with the benefits, its not worth it for a lot of people. The work is hard and they are at the bottom of the totem pole in schools. Most likely you are going to get poorly educated people but occasionally you get lucky and get a college educated former SAHM or dad who isn't dependent on the pay and may just want benefits for a spouse who is self-employed.

As for special education teachers, it's absurd that they are not paid at a higher rate than general ed teachers. They have an especially hard job. No wonder so many leave after a few years.

Special ed paras are not easy jobs and as others have indicated, they are poor paying positions. Your "poorly educated people" is insulting. You don't need a college education to assist SN students. We need compassionate and kind paras who are able to help the teacher and our special needs kids. It seems to me that you are not clear about what paras do. I have a SN kid and I also work at a HS with autism program. I have seen what the paras do and I can assure it is not necessary to have a 4 year degree to do what they do. What MCPS needs to do is to increase the salary of paras. If you ever go to the MCPS career page, you will see how many special ed para positions are available. These jobs are hard and they are not compensated fairly. You get paid the same working at Aldi's and the work is so much easier.

I’m a long time parent in MCPS with a high school child who has disabilities. Instead of para educators, there used to be special education teachers. BIG difference in skill level and trainings.

We used to receive teacher reports for IEP meetings. At first I thought it was a COVID thing when our school stopped collecting and presenting teacher input from all my child’s teachers at IEP meetings. Now I think it’s just a poorly run special education department that has not been measuring if my child is progressing with his goals and objectives.

The teachers are really burnt out this year. Too many students to have the time to do everything listed on my child’s IEP.

Central Office has come to his IEP meetings but they aren’t fixing anything that the Special Education Resource Teacher is doing that has come back from MSDE as violations. Instead, it becomes a pattern that MCPS is digging a deeper hole of violations vs. helping my child.

The level of dishonesty in the Prior Written Notice and statements made by MCPS staff at IEP meetings has resulted in us recording all IEP meetings. I really can’t understand the lack of ethics of MCPS staff. If lying achieves the objective, what is the objective? How is MCPS teaching children if they have create barriers for learning?

The culture of denying students the services they need to succeed runs deep in MCPS. It’s a blatant form of discrimination that Dr. McKnight is continuing under her leadership.

Anonymous wrote:This FY19 Reorganization shows how even at the Central Office level, Special Education was gutted. 3 Area Supervisors for the entire school system.

I’ve met ours. She actually attended my child’s IEP meeting. Sat there and watched the IDEA be violated which the MSDE weighed in on two months after. Not sure if she’s bad at her job, doesn’t give a damn about children, or both.

https://xminds.org/resources/Documents/speaker%20Handouts/Sped_reorg_052518-1.pdf

This FY19 Reorganization shows how even at the Central Office level, Special Education was gutted. 3 Area Supervisors for the entire school system.

I’ve met ours. She actually attended my child’s IEP meeting. Sat there and watched the IDEA be violated which the MSDE weighed in on two months after. Not sure if she’s bad at her job, doesn’t give a damn about children, or both.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a special Ed para. Pay was the same as a para who pulled out gen Ed kids for help. My job was infinitely harder. The pay absolutely should be higher for special Ed paras.

Does MCPS have General Education Paras? I thought they all are paid out of the Special Education budget.

Is MCPS using funds for special education services for general education students?

Every school receives staffing allocations for paraeducators. These are separate from special education budget funded paras.

Correct. MCPS uses paras like teacher assistants. Private schools will have 2 full time teachers co-teaching. MCPS takes the cheap way out.

Does MCPS use paras for co-taught classes in middle school, high school, or both?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing is going to improve with the special education teacher and para shortage until something is done about salaries. As someone earlier posted, compensation is a joke for paras. Even with the benefits, its not worth it for a lot of people. The work is hard and they are at the bottom of the totem pole in schools. Most likely you are going to get poorly educated people but occasionally you get lucky and get a college educated former SAHM or dad who isn't dependent on the pay and may just want benefits for a spouse who is self-employed.

As for special education teachers, it's absurd that they are not paid at a higher rate than general ed teachers. They have an especially hard job. No wonder so many leave after a few years.

The job is hard because MCPS keeps increasing the class sizes each teacher is required to teach. There’s too many students on each teacher’s case load. The teachers are stretched thin and the individualized education that students with disabilities need can’t exist.

MCPS Central Office just promises extra resources that never are delivered. Students don’t achieve their goals and objectives but no one in school administration cares.

Take that up with the state. State law prohibits negotiating class sizes. This is not the case in VA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a special Ed para. Pay was the same as a para who pulled out gen Ed kids for help. My job was infinitely harder. The pay absolutely should be higher for special Ed paras.

Does MCPS have General Education Paras? I thought they all are paid out of the Special Education budget.

Is MCPS using funds for special education services for general education students?

Every school receives staffing allocations for paraeducators. These are separate from special education budget funded paras.

Correct. MCPS uses paras like teacher assistants. Private schools will have 2 full time teachers co-teaching. MCPS takes the cheap way out.