MADISON COUNTY (May 5, 2015) – The Jackson Madison County School Board listened to appeals regarding the importance of Education Assistants in the classroom during Monday nights combined work session and board meeting.
At last month’s board meeting the members voted 8-1 to approve a budget that decreased the ratio of teaching assistants to students in the classroom to 1 – 100.
The plan added some assistants to a few classroom but overall it decreased the number by 18 teaching assistants. The plan is also intended to spread the teaching assistants more equally among schools to meet federal comparability standards. That money saved was repurposed into other budget items. The 18 employees will be reassigned in the system to other jobs. By reducing the ratio to 1 to 100, the system was save about $396,000.
The Bemis Montessori School has the highest number of student to assistant ration with one in every classroom this year. However, under the budget the school will lose 14 of the 18 jobs
Bemis principal Melinda Harris said she thinks, at a minimum, the school needs nine teacher assistants. That would be one assistant for every two classrooms.
School board member George Neely said he spoke as a 40 year educator and in his opinion “Teacher assistants are the best way to increase learning in the classroom”. Neely said the cost less that certified teachers, keep teacher moral up, and help students learn.
“At the end of the day, what’s really important to me is that these kids get the best education possible,” said board member Bob Alvey.
Members of the group JMCSS Strong want to see more assistants hired. Spokesperson Angie Roberts of the recently organized group addressed the board with their concerns. Roberts asked board members to revisit their budget and look for ways to add the teaching assistants back to classrooms in greater numbers. Roberts said their group would hope for a 1-36 ratio system wide but would think even a 1 – 40 would be a great improvement.
Roberts said that research shows teaching assistants improve teacher retention, and lead to greater student success.
The 1 -36 student ration would mean finding about 2.3 million dollars in the almost 100 million dollar budget. Board member George Neely said, finding that amount of money for students should be possible in a budget their size.
Bob Alvey said he would like Dr Ruffin to revisit the budget and look for options. The board voted to instruct the superintendent to look into trimming areas of the budget to keep more of the current number of teaching assistants. .
