South Orange-Maplewood Schools Get $215K from Fed Bill

The South Orange-Maplewood School District learned yesterday that it will be awarded $214,984 from the $10 billion federal Education Jobs Fund. The bill is designed to save teaching jobs.
 
"Anyone who spends just a little time with young people in a classroom knows that these are some of the best-invested federal dollars in our communities, especially during times of severe economic turmoil," said U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell,who represents the 8th Congressional District which includes South Orange and made the announcement yesterday.

"This money will be going directly towards keeping teachers in the classroom by helping school districts cope with the effect the recession has had on their budgets," Pascrell added. "Every dollar we spend on our children's education is a dollar spent on a secure and prosperous future for our country and its citizens. It's up to us to help all students realize that better future. That's what this funding is helping us accomplish."

However, the money will not be used to rehire the paraprofessionals outsourced by the school district last year in a budget-cutting move, Superintendent of Schools Brian Osborne said on Monday night. "This is not enough to reverse the action we took with the paraprofessionals," Osborne said. "It's not even close." The district saved $1.5 million with the move.

The 76 paraprofessionals were in-classroom aides who assisted special needs students. There jobs were outsourced to the Essex Regional Educational Services Commission (ERESC) for the 2010-2011 school year. ERESC has hired 68 aides at lower hourly rates ($18/hour) and no benefits. Fourteen of those aides previously worked as paraprofessionals with the school district for salaries of $35,000 and up with benefits.

The Special Education Parent-Teacher Organization (SPED-PTO) is monitoring the changes to special education and will hold its first meeting of the school year on September 30 to review how the changes are affecting students.

How will the money be spent? It's too soon to say. "We've only known about this for 90 minutes," Osborne said Monday night.

According to Pascrell's office, school districts that have been awarded the funds must use their funds only for compensation and benefits and other expenses, such as support services, necessary to retain existing employees, to recall or rehire former employees, and to hire new employees, in order to provide early childhood, elementary, or secondary educational and related services. 

The funding to New Jersey's Eighth Congressional District is part of the $10 billion Education Jobs Fund, which Rep. Pascrell supported in July and then again in August when it became part of the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act. The national fund is projected to save the jobs of 140,000 teachers throughout the nation, including 3,900 teaching jobs in New Jersey, according to the Council of Economic Advisors.
 
States can distribute their funding to school districts based on their own primary funding formula or districts' relative share of federal Title I funds.