FITCHBURG — Paraprofessionals now have an incentive to stay at or join Fitchburg Public Schools.
During the School Committee meeting on Monday, interim Superintendent Jonathan Thompson announced a new Memorandum of Understanding with the Fitchburg Education Association. He said a couple of weeks ago, conversations started involving the FEA, School Committee member Pete Stephens, and district leadership. All wanted to find a way to retain and attract paraprofessionals.
“One of the things, as you all know, is that we had a really difficult time hiring paraprofessionals this year,” Thompson said. “We had a lot of positions left unfilled.”
One change the parties discussed was amending the current salary grid. Steps one and two were removed from the paraprofessional wage scale for the program and non-program classifications. With those removed, the focus turned to increasing wages. The result was a 10% raise for both job classes.
“We are happy to announce starting salary right now, based on this agreement, is $20 [per hour],” Thompson added. “We really feel that with that increase we are now going to be able to retain, in addition to attract, qualified paraprofessionals to Fitchburg Public Schools. And that’s one of the highest rates here in the region.”
Additionally, Thomspon said current staff would be given a retention bonus. Any paraprofessional on step five of the wage scale will receive a $750 payment in the fall. All other staff members in steps one through five will receive a $500 payment.
Director of Finance and Operations Jeremy Roche said the overall cost would be $284,172, with the retention piece costing $81,000.
Stephens highlighted a news story on WCVB about Everett Public Schools discussing retaining paraprofessionals by taking some of the same steps as Fitchburg took in the past, including efforts to help paraprofessionals become teachers.
“We didn’t make channel 5 though,” Stephens joked.
