Special education resource rooms at elementary schools in the Shoreline School District will be staffed differently next year.
The change aims to improve instruction, officials say. Others say the change will hurt students.
Resource room students learn in regular classrooms, but are taught by special education teachers and paraeducators for part of the day, sometimes in the regular classroom and sometimes in a separate room.
They get help for specific disabilities, including learning and behavioral disabilities.
Next year, paraeducator hours for resource rooms will be reduced. Four schools will have no paraeducator hours.
The old model would have meant 42 hours a day of paraeducator time across all the elementary resource rooms next year, based on projected student numbers. The new model would mean 25 hours a day.
However, certificated teacher hours for resource room students will be the same at all elementary schools next year, regardless of how many students get resource room services.
Specifically, all schools will get a .8 full-time equivalent (FTE) certificated teacher. In the past, the amount of teacher hours depended on how many resource room students were at a school.
For some schools, the change means more teacher time and for some schools it means less.
Most schools will have the same or more teacher time next year than they would with the old model, said Amy Vujovich, the district’s director of special education.
“I don’t think the average student will see a difference in the teacher time, but they will see fewer paraeducator hours,” she said. “I don’t know a student would notice that necessarily unless they develop that relationship with a specific person.”
Marcia Harris, deputy superintendent, said that resource room students, who have individualized education plans called IEPs, will keep getting the services outlined in their plans.
“The instructional program will continue,” she said. “It may be the same or may be a different adult that is providing the services.”
Barb Cruz said the change will hurt students. She’s the co-president of the Shoreline Educational Support Professionals Association, or SESPA, which represents paraeducators in the district.
“I don’t think the students are going to get the same level of service they got in the past,” she said.
The changes, unlike many of the changes in the district in recent years, do not save money. The new model costs the same as the old model.
Rather, the changes are meant to improve instruction, Vujovich said.
In the past, 27 resource room students at a school meant one FTE teacher. Teacher hours went down proportionally, depending on the number of students.
As such, there weren’t enough teacher hours in many of the buildings, Vujovich said.
“It’s very difficult to run a resource room on a half-time FTE,” she said. “They’re only there two-and-half days a week.”
It’s been hard for the part-time teachers to have IEP meetings, attend staff meetings and fill out required special education paperwork, among other tasks, she said.
Special education student enrollment has been declining, and there will be enough staff next year to serve all students, Harris said.
This year, there were 258 elementary resource room students in the district in kindergarten through sixth-grade. Next year there is estimated to be 210.
There is a reserve to fund staff if enrollment is higher next year.
On the other hand, Cruz wonders how, with less paraeducator time, the resource rooms will continue to do what they do now. For example, paraeducators help by breaking students up and working with them in groups.
“I’m not sure how they plan on doing that if they’re in a resource room that gets zero (paraeducator) hours,” she said. “I think it’s going to be harder on the (teachers.) They will not have help in that classroom.”
Four schools — Brookside, Highland Terrace and Syre elementary schools, as well as kindergarten through sixth-grade students at Room Nine Community School — will have no resource room paraeducator hours next year. Brookside has 17 resource room students, Highland Terrace has 16, Syre has 14 and Room Nine has 11.
On the high end, Meridian Park Elementary, with 26 resource room students, will have six paraeducator hours per day.
“It’s not that I think the teachers aren’t capable of doing it by themselves,” Cruz said. “I don’t think the district values the work we do with the children — not at all.”
In addition, more paraeducators could be moved this year than in years past. The change will break up staff teams that have been in resource rooms for years, sometimes over a decade, Cruz said. In addition, paraeducators could lose their jobs.
The number of layoffs hasn’t been decided yet.
Harris said administrators are looking to reassign paraeducators.
Cruz said that given the number of available jobs and the number of layoffs in recent years, reassignments are unlikely.
“A lot of people will lose their jobs,” she said.
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