Everett School District has been responsive to paraeducators

Published 1:30 am Saturday, October 28, 2023

The Herald’s coverage did a disservice to Everett Public Schools by making claims about salaries paraeducators earn (“’We work just as hard’: Everett paraeducators fally for fair wages,” The Herald, Oct. 12).

It gives the false impression that these hard-working folks are raking in the big bucks, when other paraeducators around the state are earning below living-wage salaries. I was a para for the school district. I have a bachelor’s degree. I supported three district-wide programs for six years in Homeless Education, ECEAP and Section 504, and I can tell you I never got near a $79,000 annual salary. I think there is one person in the district now, an interpreter, who earns $50,000 and that’s a decent salary. However, that job in the non-education world would be worth $65,000 minimally.

Everett’s teachers and certificated staff are among the highest paid in the state with good reason. They are excellent. After six years in the district office, I moved to Everett High School in the counseling office. Until I worked with teachers and counselors side-by-side I had no idea what was asked of them from the state, county, city, parents and the community. You know who else has to be that excellent? The paraeducators who work in their classrooms. The people who are literally the extra adults in the rooms helping students.

This is a very disappointing piece which takes broad strokes where a deeper look is required. Everett Public Schools is a great place to work, and they have been very responsive to all their employees. They bargain in good faith to provide as much as possible for all staff. Education is not funded as robustly as it should be when the requirements of the jobs are as sweeping and intense as they have become.

Public education is a right and a responsibility. All the folks who help provide it need to be paid for their work at levels commensurate with the other sectors.

Mary Ellen Hardy

Everett