PARENT GROUPS MUST FUND TEACHER AIDES ONCE AGAIN

After much debate over the necessity of teacher aides, the City Department of Education and the teachers’ union have finally reached an agreement. As mentioned in a previous blog, the city had banned parents’ associations from directly hiring school aides because the union felt that the assistants were doing the work of teachers and were entitled to union wages and benefits. The agreement settled on allowing principals to hire school aides with the money that is raised by parents’ groups. At the Applebatch Teacher Community , we are excited to see how the new agreement will work out.

Parent groups and teachers depend on the aides to monitor hallways, tie shoelaces, and most importantly allow teachers in crowded classrooms to concentrate more in instruction. The teacher aides will be paid by parent associations and their salaries will be placed on the official school budget, which makes the aides eligible for union protection. However, the aides are prohibited from performing any teaching work and must focus on staff support.

The agreement expires at the end of the school year. Along with the Education Department and union officials, Applebatch hopes that a long-term solution is created by then. This may include the creation of an internship program for the aides, as suggested by the president of the union, the United Federation of Teachers, Michael Mulgrew.

At Applebatch, we hope to provide teachers with all the necessary resources, including the help of teaching aides. Through this Teacher Network , both educators and their assistants can find teaching jobs in their areas. We want to encourage all teachers to take advantage of our free resources and share their experiences and ideas at http://applebatch.com.