AEAP president raises staffing, pay and IT concerns to Ann Arbor board
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Summary
Claire Arthurs, new AEAP president, told the board members of her unit are paid near the poverty line, the district lost a large share of 1:1 and self‑contained teaching assistants, staff face safety incidents and many TAs lack functional devices after a switch from MacBooks to Chromebooks.
Claire Arthurs, who introduced herself as the new AEAP president, told the board that morale among her unit is low and that many members face financial insecurity. "For the majority of our unit, our wages have remained at or slightly above the poverty line for years now," she said, adding that some longtime members earn as little as $26,000 a year.
Arthurs described staffing declines tied to pay changes, saying the district lost over a third of 1:1 and self‑contained teaching assistants after adjustments to pay rates, and that the unit has declined from about 400 positions by roughly 80 over two years. She also raised workplace safety concerns for staff who regularly work with students who are dysregulated and said assaults and physical incidents have occurred.
Arthurs criticized an IT transition that moved teaching assistants from MacBooks to Chromebooks without ample notice; she said the change left many teaching assistants unable to run required software, print or complete mandatory modules. "A lot of what we actually do in our day to day... we're not able to do at this time," she said.
District staff acknowledged the concerns and said HR and recruitment teams are working to fill vacancies; trustees requested further data, including suspension data cross‑referenced with staffing patterns, and asked staff to include recruitment and retention strategies in forthcoming reports.
No formal board action was taken; the remarks were recorded under the community reports portion of the meeting and prompted trustees to request additional information at future meetings.
