For more than a decade Barbara Fuston-King has worked as a paraprofessional in local special needs classes, providing health and educational services to Santa Maria’s lowest functioning high school students.
She currently works in a classroom at Santa Maria High School, where she, two other paraprofessionals, and a teacher work with 10 special needs students. Six of those students are bound to wheelchairs, Fuston-King said, some are tube fed, some need help in the bathroom, and others suffer chronic seizures. In the past, Fuston-King said she’s also worked with students who need throat suctioning to prevent choking, constant one-on-one care, and language translation services.
There are two other special needs classes like Fuston-King’s in the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District–another at Santa Maria High School and one off-campus–that use paraprofessionals and teachers employed by the Santa Barbara County Education Office. Through its contract with the Education Office, the district pays indirect and administrative fees. In return, the county provides teachers, staff, and equipment in the district’s outsourced special needs classes.
That’s how it’s been since Fuston-King was assigned to work in Santa Maria about 14 years ago. But in September 2017, the district notified the county that it would be ending its outsourcing contract and taking control of its special needs classes, a move that will go into effect before the next school year starts and leaves Fuston-King and her coworkers with a choice: transfer to the district or stay with the county.
For most, it hasn’t been easy to process, Fuston-King said.
“All we are doing is fighting for our jobs,” she said.
If Fuston-King and her coworkers stay with the county, they risk temporary, long-term, or even permanent unemployment. They’d retain the displacement and layoff rights they’re granted through the Santa Barbara County Education Office, according to a county communications employee. But employees worry there won’t be available jobs in other parts of the county and say they’ll likely be laid off permanently.
But signing on with the district could result in major increases to out-of-pocket costs for insurance and cuts to the monthly stipends staff receive through the county that Fuston-King said the district probably won’t provide.
The stipends, which she said sometimes add up to a few hundred dollars a month, are paid to employees who provide special services to students, including tube feeding and language translation.
Cale Park, another paraprofessional working with special needs students through the county, said that one of his co-workers’ out-of-pocket insurance costs would spike from $500 a month to about $1,300. That would cost almost half of his monthly paycheck, Park said, and not everyone has a spouse’s plan to jump on to.
“Unfortunately it seems like staying with the county and going on unemployment looks like the best option,” Park said, adding that if he and most of his co-workers take that route, the students will suffer, too. “The students we’ve built these relationships with are going to be kind of just let go to people who might never have worked in this field or who are willing to work for this little.”
But Santa Maria Joint Union High School District Superintendent Mark Richardson said the district is legally bound to maintain high quality care for each of its special needs students, and that is and will always be the district’s No. 1 priority.
While Richardson said he’d be happy to have each of the county’s contracted paraprofessionals and teachers come on board with the district, finding qualified staff to fill those positions–if emptied–before next school year would not be a problem.
“There isn’t anything currently being done for students that we will not do,” Richardson said. “I’m very confident that we’ll be able to not only continue the great work that’s been done, but enhance it.”
Although Richardson said he feels for the employees caught up in this situation, negotiations are still being held, and the district is doing what it can to make the transition easier.
But legally, Richardson said the district can’t offer the county employees benefits, compensation, vacation time, or stipends that differ from what the district’s other classified employees agreed upon in their union’s bargaining contract. Some of those things could change in the future, but they’d have to change for all classified employees, Richardson said.
Processes like these are always difficult, he said, and he expects negotiations, informational meetings, and program planning to run well into this spring.
Still, he said this transition is much needed. While it may have made sense to run the three higher needs classes at a regional level through the county at one time–when students from varying parts of the county enrolled in the classes–all but one of the current students live within the district.
They’re Santa Maria Valley kids, and the district already provides most of the classroom space, any needed substitutes, transportation, and administrative oversight to all three classes. It’s not cost effective or efficient to provide all those services and pay the county, Richardson said.
“These students are our students; it makes sense for us to serve them,” Richardson said. “I certainly have compassion for the people involved in the program, and change is difficult on any level. But our first priority is serving our kids, and these are our kids.”
Staff Writer Kasey Bubnash can be reached at kbubnash@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 1-7, 2018.
