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Community speaker urges $10,000 paraprofessional stipend; council hears staffing shortfall figures
Summary
A community speaker and union advocate described paraprofessional shortages, urged a $10,000 stipend proposal under consideration by the City Council and called attention to low starting pay and classroom staffing gaps.
During public comment at the Feb. 11 CEC District 25 meeting, a speaker identified as Joe urged support for a City Council proposal to provide a $10,000 yearly stipend for paraprofessionals, calling the payment non‑pensionable but helpful to stabilize staffing for the city’s roughly 23,000 paraprofessionals.
“Paraprofessionals work with our most vulnerable children,” Joe said, describing a citywide shortfall he cited at about 1,600 paraprofessionals at the start of the school year across multiple settings including District 75, pre‑K and K–12 classrooms. He characterized the typical starting salary as approximately $32,000 and said the stipend proposal would provide additional annual pay outside of the collective‑bargaining structure. “It would be a yearly stipend ... to give to paras, because we need to cut … the deficit separate than collective bargaining,” he said.
Joe said Council members Rita Joseph and Julie Menin were backing the draft legislation and that the proposal had drawn both support and some opposition. He framed the stipend as an immediate way to show support for paraprofessionals whose pay has lagged behind teachers’, especially given pattern bargaining that applies percentage increases across salary scales.
Nut Graf: The comment highlighted a classroom staffing issue and a policy proposal under discussion at the City Council level. District and elected officials would need to weigh the proposal’s fiscal impact and whether a stipend should be pensionable or integrated into collective bargaining.
Ending: The speaker said advocacy and petition drives are underway; CEC members and listeners discussed local shortages and replacements in some schools, and the public comment closed without a formal district decision on the proposal.
