Parents and teachers are raising concerns over a shortage of special education workers at Central Dauphin School District.
Special education paraprofessionals help children with autism and other special needs. The school currently has 27 open positions for these jobs. The 19-school district serves about 12,000 students.
Gerren Wagner’s son is a seventh-grader at Central Dauphin. Wagner said he’s made incredible progress over the years with help from paraprofessionals. Now, he’s falling behind because he’s getting fewer hours of support.
“Because of these vacancies, our children’s classrooms are failing,” Wagner said.
She was one of about a half-dozen people to speak on the issue during a school district board meeting Monday night. Wagner and others pointed out that the positions pay $24,320 per year — and called on the school district to increase that salary.
Paraprofessional Ania Terry said she loves helping children with special needs reach important milestones. But this year she’s expected to work with more students, leaving her with more stress and more paperwork at the end of each day.
“My take home pay comes out to around $350 a week,” Terry said. “As you know, individuals don’t choose a career in education based on salary, but we do wish to feel valued. Due to staffing shortages, we are being asked to take on more responsibility without an increase in pay.”
Autistic support teacher Rachel Marshall estimated that she has a third fewer special education aides than she did when she started with the district.
“It is currently a struggle to provide that education because of being short-staffed, and again, I cannot do my job effectively without a sufficient number of paraprofessionals,” Marshall said.
Board Vice President Justin Warren said all schools are seeing staff shortages — and the solution isn’t as simple as raising wages.
“I understand the compensation piece, but I also understand that recruitment is an issue, and just getting quality people that want to do it,” Warren said. He points to an upcoming job fair as one way to hire more people.
At the meeting, board members noted that the district expects a budget surplus this year due to earned income taxes coming in above projections and lower-than-expected expenditures. The district is setting aside $4.5 million to upgrade high school athletic fields.
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