Melissa Bailey Photo
Edgewood parent Davis: “Pulling a para out the second week of school is disastrous in the mind of a child.”
After the school system abruptly transferred a “gentle,” “fantastic” paraprofessional to an overflow K‑2 program, 90 parents called on the schools to bring back extra help to classrooms across the city.
Parents at Edgewood School issued the call in a petition delivered to the school board at its meeting Monday at 54 Meadow St.
In response, Superintendent Reggie Mayo said he agrees with the importance of having paraprofessionals in K‑2 classrooms; he championed the move to do so over a decade ago. He said the district has had to cut back for budget reasons.
The issue is a perennial one in New Haven schools, which sometimes rely on paraprofessionals in lower grades to keep order when one or a handful of students may require special attention.
Outrage began to ripple through Edgewood school last Tuesday, when parents found out Tony Langley, a beloved assistant teacher in Edgewood’s kindergarten, had been transferred without warning to the Quinnipiac Elementary School, a new school set up this fall to accommodate an overflow in the city’s K‑2 population.
“Pulling a para out the second week of school is disastrous in the mind of a child,” said Edgewood mom Kim Davies (pictured above picking up her daughter Julia from school). Davies was one of a half-dozen Edgewood parents who showed up Monday to the school board.
Davies said her daughter, who’s now in the 3rd grade, had Langley in her classroom when she was younger. Langley was “kind,” “gentle,” and great at calming kids down when they were upset, she said.
“He’s an incredible para,” she said. “A lot of parents are upset” to see him go.
Langley was one of eight paraprofessionals yanked out of city classrooms over the past week to staff the new Quinnipiac Elementary. The others came from: Fair Haven School, Truman, Celentano, Hill Central Music Academy, Barnard, Zigler Head Start, and Strong School, the other overflow K‑2 school.
In response to the move, Edgewood shifted a 1st-grade paraprofessional into the kindergarten class, leaving two classes of 26 1st-graders to share one assistant teacher.
Parent Tim Holahan (at left in photo with Edgewood mom Chrissy Gardner) blasted the move on several fronts.
“This poorly-timed personnel change was caused by what seems to me, and to many parents, a serious lack of planning and preparation for increased citywide demand for K‑2 slots,” Holahan stated in an email.
He and other parents presented Superintendent Mayo with a petition Monday. It calls for the district to “return Tony Langley as quickly as possible” to Edgewood’s kindergarten; maintain one full-time paraprofessional in all grades K and 1 at Edgewood and across the district; “avoid foreseeable staffing crises in the future”; and “hold timely, well-noticed, and accessible meetings with the public and parents about how to meet budget shortfalls.”
Holahan and fellow Edgewood dad Matt Higbee aired their concerns at the podium before the board Monday.
Higbee, who has children in kindergarten and 2nd grade at Edgewood, called Langley “the best para in our school.” He urged Mayo to restore behavioral supports in the early grades, because without them, “you lose the children you may never get back.”
Mayo gave a public response at Monday’s meeting.
“I understand the importance” of having assistant teachers in early childhood classrooms, Mayo assured parents.
“I’m the guy who recommended” the district staff all K‑2 classrooms with paraprofessionals over a decade ago, Mayo said. But “due to budget cuts, we had to cut back.”
He said amid tight budget times, he was staring this year at 30 paraprofessional positions that needed to be filled. The number of paraprofessionals required by special needs students rose by 19, he said. And the flood of K‑2 kids required another 11 at the Quinnipiac school, he said. Mayo decided the district could not fill all of those positions.
“I didn’t think we could afford it,” he said.
Instead, he asked staff “if we can squeeze in a bit,” because of the budget.
Mayo told parents he would give them an answer in October, when the city finds out how it will be able to use the extra $3.8 million in Education Cost Sharing money from the state. That money was given to “priority school districts.” It will have strings attached. Mayor John DeStefano noted Monday the money can be used only for new programming. That may mean New Haven can’t use it to hire more paraprofessionals.
After the meeting, Mayo was asked about parents’ charge that the school district should have better planned for the rise in K‑2 kids.
“I didn’t know I had 300 kids over” last year, Mayo said. “They just kept coming.” A spike in special education needs added to the crunch, he said.
Mayo said over the years, New Haven cut back from fully staffing each K‑2 classroom with a teacher and a paraprofessional. Now all kindergartens and about half of 1st grades are staffed with paras; 2nd grades are not, Mayo said.
He said despite the cutbacks, he believes New Haven still looks good by comparison: When it comes to the number of paraprofessionals in classrooms, he said, “most school districts don’t have as many.”