Speaker Menin on paraprofessional pay crisis
Menin advocates for paraprofessionals and the Respect Act, noting starting salary of $32,500, 1,600 DOE vacancies, and $1.5 billion spent on Carter cases. She shares that some paras live in shelters and cannot afford groceries, calling it unconscionable and urging passage of legislation to address it.
Earlier this morning, I was thrilled to gather in the rotunda with many of you where we advocated for our paraprofessionals and for the Respect Act.
Proud to be wearing this pin on this today for our amazing, amazing paras.
I first of all want to thank Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa.
She and I have been on a two-year journey along with the UFT on this important work.
And I just want to say a word about this.
Our city's paraprofessional starting salary is $32,500 to be specific.
We know our paras are helping our most special resource, our children, and really our most vulnerable children, those with special needs.
We have 1,600 vacancies at DOE of paraprofessionals.
We are spending $1.5 billion a year on Carter cases, largely because in so many classrooms there is no paraprofessional.
So many of our paraprofessionals, and we've heard this literally at every single rally, I think we did four rallies,
Councilmember DeRosa, you and I on this issue, and at every rally we hear from paraprofessionals who literally say some of them are living in the shelter system, some cannot afford groceries.
This is unconscionable.
And so today, our fervent hope is that we will finally pass legislation to address it.
I want to be clear.
Obviously, we believe this should be done via collective bargaining or through the budget, but that was not happening.
And so we, the council, had to act.
And so I think this is just incredibly, incredibly important that we finally, once and for all, give paraprofessionals the pay they so rightly deserve.