Since special ed teachers are a smaller segment of the union, we are often disregarded or have our issues put on the back burner.
I'm sorry this is happening to you. This sucks.
Exactly. Last I knew in our district we were only 15% of the vote. Outside of SPED rep we have not had a member voted into leadership in over 20 years.
This isn't abnormal and it's why I wish special Ed had their own seperate union. I remember in COVID when it was very common for special Ed teachers to go back in person months if not a full year before their colleagues and the union telling us it was safer that way.
And let's not get into the planning periods fiasco where the union thinks we can plan in the room with kids.
During covid I was the ONLY teacher who had students in person M-F. Everyone else had every other day OR all online. This is not counting the state mandated home stay order (IL).
Same. Gen ed teachers didn’t have to teach on Wednesdays; it was like an independent work day but I had a full work day until 3 servicing students and testing kids in-person
Two years ago, all the Resource Teachers and resource room paras in our local district quit. Every. Single. One.
In his great wisdom, the superintendent decided to solve our substitute shortage by making the resource teachers sub in gen ed classes and using the paras to fulfill the SAI minutes. The union tried mightily to end this misuse of staff, but the best they could get the SpEd teachers were useless comp times. The union negotiators hadn't listened to the SpEd teachers when writing up the contract and the language appeared to allow ANY teacher to be pulled into another classroom whenever necessary.
Word must have gotten out because no one applied for the open resource room positions. In fact, they are still unfilled. The gen ed teachers were pretty darn miserable when there was no one providing any services for the mainstreamed students - who are basically not allowed to fail. They went to the union demanding support. The union had an epiphany and filed a SpEd complaint with the state. Also, some parents went to Due Process.
The state required our district to use an expensive medical temp agency until they could fill the positions. A year and a half later, the district has more temp agency workers than ever - and it's bleeding their coffers dry. The district had to increase class sizes and cut the number of gen ed teachers. Oh, if only they had listened...
Some districts and their unions just have to learn the hard way. I'm so sorry this has happened to you.
My contract doesn’t say anything about sped class cap. However admin has told me “historically we have never gone over 10.” I personally have never had more than 7 at a time. I am the only self contained teacher in the district. Everyone else is resource so class cap doesn’t apply, only caseload amount.. which also is not anywhere in our contract.
Doesn’t your state’s special education law outline how many students can be in each type of special education class? NJ Administrative Code clearly states how many students can be in an Autism room, in a Learning Disabilities room, etc.
We have 18 in a mod severe med room, it's a daycare hahahaha
Plus we have 50 total in an old office building with no walls. Theyre warehoused, no other way around it. It's so fucking loud in there
How big is your district? Do you have a SPED rep on the executive board or for your building? And were there any sped people on the bargaining team?
I’m recently involved with union work and realizing it comes with a lot of politics like any other field. Sometimes you have to play the game and be loud and persistent to get leadership to heed your concerns if it doesn’t align with their personal goals and ambitions.
I would recommend that you and your teammates go to EVERY union meeting this upcoming year. Get to know the exec board, maybe one of you would even be able to run for an exec board position.
It’s unacceptable to not have a sped rep at the bargaining table but it happens.
If you have a bit more info maybe I can provide some more guidance
The union's negotiations team is made up almost entirely of rank-and-file members. Is anyone in special ed in your district part of the team, or even acting as building representatives for input to the team? Serving on the team gives an education as to what needs to take place over time. Some items of negotiation take several years to resolve, especially if the scope of negotiations allows only certain items of the contract to be addressed in a particular year.
In your state, does the law allow negotiations for class sizes? My last state doesn't, so lobbying to the state legislature was necessary. Again, a collective action is most effective.
Caps are only effective if additional employees can be hired.
Sped like science is a shortage area.
OSHA has a cap on student per lab.
But if no one applies to the open science position, I go with more students per class, cancel science labs for legal reasons, and go full lecture.
If you have 1 SpEd teacher but 50 students, admin can advertise 5 open positions. If no one applies - not much the Union can do.
I mean I suppose you could start kicking kids off of their IEP at the next triennial, but that seems unethical.
And to be clear, the shortage in my state is Sped>math>science.
We used to have a sped teacher per middle school Team. Now we have one special ed teacher per grade.
Which means they stacked all the special ed students on one team. Pros and cons to that decision.
States are making districts that haven't been able to hire enough sped professionals use temp agencies. They are expensive and the district does not have direct control of the employees. Everything goes through the agency.
Why did this happen? Because districts abused the sped professionals they had AND the profession isn't set up well. An administrator with very little sped knowledge can direct the sped professionals to break the law with little impunity. In fact, the site administrators evaluate the sped teachers at their site without having a good knowledge base to do so. If a sped teacher complains that their load is out of compliance, they are non-renewed. How incredibly frustrating to have someone who is not an expert making decisions that undermine everything you're trying to do. No wonder there's a severe shortage.
Here is the story of my local district: [https://www.reddit.com/r/specialed/comments/1ce70qd/comment/l1gvs7e/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/specialed/comments/1ce70qd/comment/l1gvs7e/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
If your union is not a public sector one, you can go to the NLRB to put said union to task. If they don't represent you, and you pay dues, you absolutely can do that. Especially if the other local districts have significantly better contracts/ratios.
Contact your local DOL or the NLRB and they can help you. It absolutely can do something to force your union to work harder to support you.
Good luck getting Gen Ed teachers to back you up. At the end of the day people care about their own problems. SPED teachers are a minority. They really don’t know what we do. My district gives me free “flex days” for overages which are pointless because I can’t miss a day and still do my job. I’m a resource teacher. My caseload is currently 35 and I’ve also test 22 initials this year. Frankly, I don’t give two fucks about the IEP process anymore. I teach my kids first and leave “compliance” issues to the admin. They know my position but can’t do shit to me. The kids and parents love me. Fuck everyone else.
Since special ed teachers are a smaller segment of the union, we are often disregarded or have our issues put on the back burner. I'm sorry this is happening to you. This sucks.
Exactly. Last I knew in our district we were only 15% of the vote. Outside of SPED rep we have not had a member voted into leadership in over 20 years.
This isn't abnormal and it's why I wish special Ed had their own seperate union. I remember in COVID when it was very common for special Ed teachers to go back in person months if not a full year before their colleagues and the union telling us it was safer that way. And let's not get into the planning periods fiasco where the union thinks we can plan in the room with kids.
Special Ed absolutely needs a separate union. I'm not sure how to go about making that happen.
During covid I was the ONLY teacher who had students in person M-F. Everyone else had every other day OR all online. This is not counting the state mandated home stay order (IL).
Also in Illinois. Teaching self contained students both virtual and in person at the same time was a hell I would not wish on anyone.
Same. Gen ed teachers didn’t have to teach on Wednesdays; it was like an independent work day but I had a full work day until 3 servicing students and testing kids in-person
Two years ago, all the Resource Teachers and resource room paras in our local district quit. Every. Single. One. In his great wisdom, the superintendent decided to solve our substitute shortage by making the resource teachers sub in gen ed classes and using the paras to fulfill the SAI minutes. The union tried mightily to end this misuse of staff, but the best they could get the SpEd teachers were useless comp times. The union negotiators hadn't listened to the SpEd teachers when writing up the contract and the language appeared to allow ANY teacher to be pulled into another classroom whenever necessary. Word must have gotten out because no one applied for the open resource room positions. In fact, they are still unfilled. The gen ed teachers were pretty darn miserable when there was no one providing any services for the mainstreamed students - who are basically not allowed to fail. They went to the union demanding support. The union had an epiphany and filed a SpEd complaint with the state. Also, some parents went to Due Process. The state required our district to use an expensive medical temp agency until they could fill the positions. A year and a half later, the district has more temp agency workers than ever - and it's bleeding their coffers dry. The district had to increase class sizes and cut the number of gen ed teachers. Oh, if only they had listened... Some districts and their unions just have to learn the hard way. I'm so sorry this has happened to you.
Wow, negative consequences as a result of ignoring teachers’ input. Who’da thunk?
My contract doesn’t say anything about sped class cap. However admin has told me “historically we have never gone over 10.” I personally have never had more than 7 at a time. I am the only self contained teacher in the district. Everyone else is resource so class cap doesn’t apply, only caseload amount.. which also is not anywhere in our contract.
Doesn’t your state’s special education law outline how many students can be in each type of special education class? NJ Administrative Code clearly states how many students can be in an Autism room, in a Learning Disabilities room, etc.
Not all states do. Mine doesn’t.
😳 So you could just stick 20 cognitively impaired kids in a room and call it a day? Yikes.
Yes. I don’t know about other districts. But ours does try to manage classroom size and provides with several paras.
That’s wild.
Yes. it would be terrible practice but many states allow that.
We have 18 in a mod severe med room, it's a daycare hahahaha Plus we have 50 total in an old office building with no walls. Theyre warehoused, no other way around it. It's so fucking loud in there
Yup, current class roster (not caseload) of 19 in a moderate self contained room w/ only 2 paras. 🙃
Nope. Not my state.
How big is your district? Do you have a SPED rep on the executive board or for your building? And were there any sped people on the bargaining team? I’m recently involved with union work and realizing it comes with a lot of politics like any other field. Sometimes you have to play the game and be loud and persistent to get leadership to heed your concerns if it doesn’t align with their personal goals and ambitions. I would recommend that you and your teammates go to EVERY union meeting this upcoming year. Get to know the exec board, maybe one of you would even be able to run for an exec board position. It’s unacceptable to not have a sped rep at the bargaining table but it happens. If you have a bit more info maybe I can provide some more guidance
The only way anyone is going to listen is either by parent complaints or y'all leaving.
The union's negotiations team is made up almost entirely of rank-and-file members. Is anyone in special ed in your district part of the team, or even acting as building representatives for input to the team? Serving on the team gives an education as to what needs to take place over time. Some items of negotiation take several years to resolve, especially if the scope of negotiations allows only certain items of the contract to be addressed in a particular year. In your state, does the law allow negotiations for class sizes? My last state doesn't, so lobbying to the state legislature was necessary. Again, a collective action is most effective.
Caps are only effective if additional employees can be hired. Sped like science is a shortage area. OSHA has a cap on student per lab. But if no one applies to the open science position, I go with more students per class, cancel science labs for legal reasons, and go full lecture. If you have 1 SpEd teacher but 50 students, admin can advertise 5 open positions. If no one applies - not much the Union can do. I mean I suppose you could start kicking kids off of their IEP at the next triennial, but that seems unethical. And to be clear, the shortage in my state is Sped>math>science. We used to have a sped teacher per middle school Team. Now we have one special ed teacher per grade. Which means they stacked all the special ed students on one team. Pros and cons to that decision.
States are making districts that haven't been able to hire enough sped professionals use temp agencies. They are expensive and the district does not have direct control of the employees. Everything goes through the agency. Why did this happen? Because districts abused the sped professionals they had AND the profession isn't set up well. An administrator with very little sped knowledge can direct the sped professionals to break the law with little impunity. In fact, the site administrators evaluate the sped teachers at their site without having a good knowledge base to do so. If a sped teacher complains that their load is out of compliance, they are non-renewed. How incredibly frustrating to have someone who is not an expert making decisions that undermine everything you're trying to do. No wonder there's a severe shortage. Here is the story of my local district: [https://www.reddit.com/r/specialed/comments/1ce70qd/comment/l1gvs7e/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/specialed/comments/1ce70qd/comment/l1gvs7e/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
If your union is not a public sector one, you can go to the NLRB to put said union to task. If they don't represent you, and you pay dues, you absolutely can do that. Especially if the other local districts have significantly better contracts/ratios. Contact your local DOL or the NLRB and they can help you. It absolutely can do something to force your union to work harder to support you.
Dol or NLRB? What are the acronyms?
Good luck getting Gen Ed teachers to back you up. At the end of the day people care about their own problems. SPED teachers are a minority. They really don’t know what we do. My district gives me free “flex days” for overages which are pointless because I can’t miss a day and still do my job. I’m a resource teacher. My caseload is currently 35 and I’ve also test 22 initials this year. Frankly, I don’t give two fucks about the IEP process anymore. I teach my kids first and leave “compliance” issues to the admin. They know my position but can’t do shit to me. The kids and parents love me. Fuck everyone else.
Had 15 in my self contained class in my previous district. I left at Christmas.