“I enjoyed being part of a community of educators who are experiencing the same issues and speaking up about them,” one teacher said. “It made me feel less alone.”
“I really felt like the legislators heard us,” another said.
Two hundred CEA members and legislators came together this weekend for an experience members called educational and empowering. CEA’s Breakfast with Legislators allowed members to share their firsthand knowledge related to the special education crisis, the need to raise teacher salaries, ensuring fairness in the workplace, and more directly with legislators.
“We have a list of CEA legislative priorities that we’ve shared with legislators, but we now have an opportunity to take those proposals and illustrate them with our personal stories,” said CEA President Kate Dias.
Of the 20 legislators who attended the breakfast, four are CEA members who are active classroom teachers.
“We’re happy to have our educator friends here, but legislators who aren’t educators need to hear from us. We need to share our concerns, our issues, our ideas, and the realities of what goes on in school,” Dias said.
Special education
“I work in a school that only has one special ed teacher for preK through grade eight,” said Bridgeport teacher Mia Dimbo. After one teacher left, a single special educator is now covering the entire school, which also only has one special education paraprofessional.
“My students are in seventh and eighth grade math, and they never get any type of paraeducator services with their IEPs, because we don’t have anybody,” Dimbo said.
State Rep. Maryam Khan, a special education teacher, shared that 50% of special education teachers have left the profession by the five-year mark.
“For the first time this year, we have a Select Committee on Special Education, which is great because it means there’s a real commitment to looking at this issue, which is a dire need in every single community,” said Senator Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox, who is co-chair of the committee.
“This is where your advocacy comes in, this is the time to push for getting the funding that we need for this priority issue,” she told educators, urging them to attend listening sessions the committee is holding this week in Bridgeport and Hartford. Teachers can join the Hartford session virtually as well as in-person.
Gadkar-Wilcox’s committee co-chair State Rep. Maryam Khan is an East Hartford special education teacher. Khan said that sufficient funding is a big piece of what is needed for schools, but said the state also needs to focus on how to retain special educators.
“I have made it to the seven-year mark. Fifty percent of special education teachers leave after five years, and it makes sense—my fellow special education teachers know what I’m talking about. My caseload has gone up every single one of those seven years,” Khan said.
Another CEA member, State Rep. Chris Poulos, who teaches Spanish in Region 9, vice chairs the committee.
“One of the things that we’ve heard at the listening sessions so far is that when we increase funding for special education we need to put measures in place to ensure those funds go to the schools. The fear is that if the funding goes to the municipality they’ll use the money to keep a lower mill rate,” Poulos said to applause.
Hannah May Murray, pictured second from left with other CEA Aspiring Educators, shared that she’s had some doubts about continuing in the field of education due to the low starting salary.
Avon Education Association President Jon Moss said he worries some legislators and members of the public think that focusing on special education is too limited in scope because it doesn’t serve all students.
“I think all of us in this room can tell you, when you have a school that is well supported in special education every single teacher feels the benefits of that and every single student benefits from that,” he said. “When you have a classroom that’s missing special education support, the teacher puts themselves in the role of being the special education case manager or paraprofessional in the room, and then other students don’t get what they need.”
UConn sophomore Hannah May Murray is a product of special education and wants to become a special education teacher, but recently she’s been doubting her future in education.
“These past few months I’ve been considering dropping out of college and working at Trader Joe’s full-time because I cannot afford to pay for my degree and then go into a job that pays under 60K,” she told legislators. “I’m your children’s future teacher, your grandchildren’s future teacher, and I want to go into teaching because I love working with the kids, but I worry that I can’t afford to do that. My siblings are going to be making more when they graduate than I can probably reach in my entire career.”
Salary enhancement
The need to raise teacher salaries exists not just in special education, but across the teaching profession.
“I just want to give you numbers to paint the picture perfectly clearly as to what salaries look like for teachers,” Hamden teacher Cinzia Lettieri told legislators. “This year in Hamden a teacher starting out at step four with a bachelor’s degree would make $48,397 and with a master’s degree, $52,659.”
Hamden teacher Cinzia Lettieri told legislators that low salaries prevent teachers from being able to provide for their family’s future.
She continued, “I am on step seven. As a fifth-grade science teacher, I make $58,047. It would take me 11 more years to make a comfortable living in the state of Connecticut. Do any of you who sit before us have the wherewithal to continue in a profession for 11 more years, barely scraping by in this economy, barely being able to put gas in my car from Clinton to Hamden, barely being able to save money to buy a home with my husband and pay for daycare for my three-year-old?”
Glastonbury early-career educator Austin Longendyke spoke with legislators about the need for teacher salary enhancement to level the playing field between districts.
“When I was a student teacher I taught in a Quiet Corner district, and I had a wonderful experience. I loved the district, I loved the students, and I loved my colleagues,” Longendyke said. “My cooperating teacher told me, ‘You should look for a job in another district. This district has starting salaries five thousand dollars less than other districts, and by the time you get to the top step, it amounts to tens of thousands of dollars in lost wages.’”
Longendyke ended up taking the advice and getting a job in another district.
“I didn’t enter education for the money, but push comes to shove, we need to pay our bills. Our students’ zip code should not have any effect on the education they receive.”
East Hartford teachers spoke with State Rep. Patrick Biggins.
“This is by far the best profession, but we cannot continue to rely on goodwill as the feedback and the food for our profession—some of us actually want to feed our families. We want to buy houses, we want to invest in Connecticut, and we can’t do that with a starting salary that’s below $50,000,” Dias said.
“When I first started teaching I made $9,200, and I had a family of four already,” said retired Stamford school librarian Richard Boritz. “I had to work three jobs to make ends meet. Luckily, in the 1980s there was the school enhancement act in Connecticut that allowed my salary to go up, and when it went up, it allowed me to quit my other jobs.”
When Boritz was able to solely focus on his job as a school librarian he had the time to modernize his school’s library system and computerize resources that had previously been print only.
“When you raise teacher salaries you are making an investment not just in the people that are working in education, but you’re making an investment in the quality of the education that children receive,” Boritz said.
Just cause and binding arbitration
State Rep. Kevin Brown, a CREC social studies teacher, spoke with fellow CEA members.
Also discussed were the need for due process rights for teachers that are equal to those of all other public-sector employees, which would provide greater fairness in termination matters. Strengthening the termination statute to include just cause and binding arbitrators’ decisions would offer an important level of protection that certified public school teachers—unlike other school staff, including custodians and paraeducators—are currently without.
“Absent just cause and binding arbitration, we can fight for teachers and they could still lose their jobs,” said Dias. “That needs to change.”
“It’s really important for all teachers to continue sharing their stories,” said CEA member and State Rep. Nick Menapace, who encouraged educators to attend local board of education meetings, public hearings held by the state legislature, and other forums where education is discussed and debated.
“I really feel like the Breakfast with Legislators amplified our voice, and I’m thankful to all the legislators who came and listened,” said Southington teacher David Marchesani. “We also need to reach out to legislators who weren’t at the breakfast and make sure they understand our positions on the issues. I will definitely attend more of these statewide meetings.”
Stay tuned to the CEA Daily for more on opportunities to speak with legislators and make your voice heard. Save the date for CEA Lobby Day, which is scheduled for April 23.
