Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Instructional Assistants: the Working Poor

Jonathan Pelto:

In Connecticut, public school instructional assistants, (many of who have college degrees), are paid $11 to $14 per hour, for 6.5 hours of work a day, for 186 school days a year. Add in the 8 paid holidays and subtract out their health insurance premium co-pay and the average IA salary earns in the range of about $10,800 to $13,500 a year… a rate of pay that places them well below the poverty level.

A core member of the education team, caring for our children, helping them to learn, backing up our teachers and we pay them one-third to a one-half as much as we pay school bus drivers and far less than the pay any other education related employee.

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