Grand Forks special education report calls for new organization, training, but no new staff – Grand Forks Herald

GRAND FORKS – A report from a joint committee of Grand Forks’ special educators and school district administrators advises selecting building leaders to manage paraprofessionals and lessen the demand on special education teachers, but does not call for more staff or higher pay.

Representatives from the Grand Forks School Board and the Grand Forks Education Association will meet Tuesday for the second week of contract negotiations between the school district and the teachers union.

Much of Tuesday’s meeting is expected to be given to the presentation of the joint committee, a group

created to investigate and propose solutions

to a yearslong crisis of overwork and burnout among the district’s special educators.

Committee members have raised concerns about working in excess of their contracts and without sufficient prep time; a nebulous system for assigning caseloads to teachers; and having to supervise often-undertrained paraprofessionals with high turnover rates.

The committee’s report recommends a series of administrative solutions to address these problems, including adapting a new caseload system sourced from Fargo Public Schools and “investing” in training time for paraprofessionals, as well as adding training for general education teachers and administrators on what is and isn’t in special educators’ job duties.

It also suggests designating at school buildings “team leaders” charged with managing paraprofessionals. (That model is already in practice at the district’s high schools, according to one special educator.)

The report stops short of calling for new hires, though it notes the committee “determined that protecting prep time could not be accomplished” without additional staff.

The Herald sought comment from Elisa Diederich, a committee member and executive director of special education, but did not receive a response. District spokesperson Melissa Bakke later emailed the Herald to say the district did not have a comment for the story and asked the Herald to attend Tuesday’s negotiations.

One committee member who was not authorized to speak publicly about the report said the recommendations that did make the report were “great” but did not address special educators’ immediate needs.

“There’s nothing for new staff and there’s nothing immediate that’s going to make our lives more sustainable,” the committee member said.

Negotiators for the district and the GFEA have said they will not comment on the committee report ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.

However, the GFEA included in its opening negotiations last week a series of provisions boosting compensation for special educators who take on additional responsibilities, including managing paraprofessionals.

“Supervising, evaluating and figuring out scheduling of where paras will be is a lot of extra work and SHOULD NOT be on the special education teacher’s plate,” the union’s written statement reads.

Special education is widely understood to be chronically underfunded in Grand Forks and across the nation.

More state special education funding was among the issues district officials raised with lawmakers in the runup to this year’s legislative session, though that request

appears to have had little forward movement.

GFEA Vice President Joe Drumm warned that special educators were already at a crisis point

in an October Herald report.

Joshua Irvine covers K-12 and higher education for the Grand Forks Herald. He can be reached at [email protected].