This is the debut of what we’re tentatively calling the Vision Series, where we'll highlight detailed, real-world examples of how Spartacus can help people facing various coordination problems and collective action dilemmas. Hopefully, it can inspire others to explore similar possibilities in their own organizations, institutions, industries, and communities.
This entry tells the story of an anonymous employee of the Long Island Public School System who is currently evaluating Spartacus.
This blog post describes the challenges faced by paraprofessionals in the public school system, particularly regarding their compensation and job security. The author, a paraprofessional in Long Island, NY, emphasizes the crucial role these workers play in schools, yet they are often underpaid and lack the employment protections that teachers have.
The author identifies key obstacles to successful contract negotiations, including the union's difficulty in gauging member support for specific demands and the inability to leverage their collective strength effectively. The author suggests that Spartacus.app could be a valuable tool in addressing these challenges. Spartacus could help union leaders understand member sentiment, quantify support for specific actions, and ultimately negotiate more effectively. This would empower paraprofessionals to advocate for better working conditions without fear of reprisal.
-By Anonymous
I have worked for the past five years as a paraprofessional within a public school district located on the North shore of Long Island, NY. Paraprofessionals, also known as paraeducators, are integral to the public school system. They consist of Teacher's Assistants, Educational Assistants, building aides, and other support staff that work under the supervision of licensed or certified teachers to provide instructional and non-instructional support to students. They perform a vast array of crucial roles within schools, from ensuring the safety of elementary students during recess to providing 1:1 aid to special education students with disabilities or behavioral needs.
Paraprofessional staff make the daily operations, classroom instruction, and building safety practices possible in every public school within the country. If a classroom has a large number of students, or if an individual student requires special attention, it very often falls to a 'para' to fill these needs. We monitor students and ensure their safety during lunch and recess. We help prepare lesson materials, collaborate with teachers to assist in students' instruction and work closely with security staff to ensure the school's safety protocols are followed. Ask any classroom teacher or principal just how valuable their paraprofessional staff are, and they will likely tell you that the school can't function without them.
That being said, the salary we receive in compensation for our work is often not commensurate with our immense value within the public school system. More often than not, paras are some of the lowest-paid staff within a school district, with salaries that range between $20,000 and $40,000 annually within NY, regardless of longevity and seniority. Additionally, only Teaching Assistants, who account for a small percentage of para staff, can receive tenure—the employment protection that licensed teachers benefit from.
Paraprofessionals are unionized within NYS in a manner similar to but separate from teachers' unions. As such, their salaries, benefits, duties, and responsibilities are outlined by contracts that are agreed upon between union leadership the district school board, and central administration. These contracts must be signed and renewed every 4 years and, therefore, function as living, breathing documents that often change and evolve to reflect the interests and needs of both the paraprofessional staff and the school districts that employ them.
The employment contract results from a lengthy collective bargaining process that can span months, sometimes even years. It often is the source of much speculation, derision, and contention among the interested parties. Even when the process is concluded, many of the significant measures desired by both employers and employees are left on the table due to the inability of one or both sides to reach a compromise.
And that is what brings me to the topic of Spartacus.app. Again, the primary and most frequent points of frustration and dissatisfaction I share with my para colleagues is our inability, over the long term, to receive appropriate salary steps, job security, expanded responsibilities, or a meaningful raise in compensation. During the lead-up to contract negotiations and collective bargaining, we hold numerous meetings among our building para staff, as well as virtual meetings in which our leadership gives updates on the negotiation process to union members district-wide.
I recognized some of our biggest obstacles to successful contract negotiations in these meetings. Most notable is our union's failure to get everybody building-wide and district-wide on the same page from an organizational standpoint. Somebody would often voice their concerns or suggest an improvement to our contract. Though a few members might second their opinion or voice their support, we could not quantify how many members agreed. The central union leadership relies on union reps from each building to gather information from their members in small meetings and filter concerns up the pipeline to be addressed by leadership at monthly private meetings. This process is slow, cumbersome, and, most importantly, non-transparent. How do we, as members on the ground level, know when, how, and if our concerns are even being addressed by leadership?
Furthermore, we never truly utilize our ability to leverage our strength in numbers during the negotiation process. As I said, the work we do is crucial to the day-to-day functions of the schools we work in. On several occasions, my colleagues and I informally discussed that if we were able to threaten at least the ability not to show up to work for 1 single day in complete unison, the schools simply would not be able to function. This would only be a measure of last resort, but many of us have voiced our frustrations that the school board and central administration do not take our demands seriously. One such day of union solidarity could bring about the desired result that we have been denied through years of negotiations.
But drastic actions such as these are incredibly difficult to introduce, much less execute on a district-wide level. As I said, most of us have not been granted tenure. We don't have real job security. If administrators perceive someone to be a rabble-rouser or a troublemaker, how long before they are relieved of their position? Also, our union leaders have built relationships with teachers and administrators over years of negotiating in good faith. How many would be willing to jeopardize those relationships by threatening holdouts or strikes, especially when they don't know precisely how many union members are serious about participating in such actions? Harsh but effective negotiation tactics such as these are only possible when there is a certainty, or at least a very high likelihood, that enough members will act in concert with each other. Otherwise, the threat of these actions can be dismissed by the school board and central administration as merely a bluffing tactic.
That's why I see the Spartacus.app as such a potentially powerful tool to bring to bear in these efforts. It would allow our union-building reps and district leaders to gain real-time data on how many members support specific changes and/or demands for our contract. It would allow us to know precisely how many of us would be willing to take drastic measures, such as holding out from work or attending an organized protest. It's especially useful that Spartacus grants its users the protection of anonymity until the threshold of effective action has been met. Under this model, drastic actions, which are sometimes necessary, will only occur when they have a real chance of success. This means that members of the union, from recent hires to 20+ year veterans, don't have to fear losing their jobs or damaging their professional relationships for an unrealistic or ineffectual cause.
Certain individuals will always dare to speak their minds freely, regardless of the consequences, and I'm grateful to have some of them in our union. However, I also sympathize with the majority of our members who care about these issues but maybe care more about keeping their jobs and being able to take care of their families.
I get it; most intelligent people don't want to sacrifice themselves in a battle for a lost cause. Spartacus could give us the power to fight these battles collectively, intelligently, and, most importantly, safely.
I look forward to sharing this new platform with my union's leadership and creating a paradigm shift in how our paraprofessional union negotiates employment contracts in the future.
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