AUSTIN, Texas — Special education teachers with the Austin Independent School District are getting a raise – and that's not all.
The new plan comes after KVUE first uncovered at least 29 resignations from the district's Special Education Department in just the past five months.
The plan includes a pay raise for all special education teachers, depending on how many years they have worked for the district. This comes after they got a 6% raise just last year.
The district's executive director of special education, Dr. Aqwekta Hickman, said on Tuesday that the 2,000 special education employees she oversees are important.
"We are committed to supporting the need of staff and individual special education students through increased resources," Hickman said.
In addition to the raise, starting in March, the district will provide special education teachers a $500 stipend. There will also be a signing bonus for new special education teachers and teaching assistants.
All this comes after Melissa Mathews and another AISD speech-language pathologist (SLP) told KVUE last week about their working conditions at the district. Before the Board of Trustees last year, they cited poor pay, an overwhelming workload and lack of respect as reasons for resigning.
Dr. Hickman took issue with the number of cases Mathews said many SLP carried, which was 70.
"In our district, we have an average of about 38 in our caseload number," Hickman said.
On Tuesday, Mathews argued when the district found that average, it took into account part-time SLPs, contract SLPs and new SLP's who need supervision – so the number isn't accurate.
But the bottom line is the same.
"All of the SLPs are at capacity or working significantly overcapacity," Mathews said.
Ken Zarifis with Education Austin, the district's employee union, said the fight isn't over.
"It's very important that all people that work are respected and valued in this district," Zarifis said.
Zarifis and Mathews said this plan is a step in the right direction. Matthews and other SLPs still hope to meet with administrators to collaborate over ideas on how to improve working conditions for current speech pathologists.
Right now, starting base pay for a SLP at AISD is $52,672.
Last week, KVUE reported 32 employees had resigned from the Special Education Department since August, based on information from the former speech pathologists interviewed for the story and Education Austin. District representatives said it was actually 29 because one of the employees was not a special education attorney – he was a staff attorney who worked on several issues that included special education.
KVUE is awaiting for more details about the three employees from AISD and the former speech pathologists. But Mathews, Zarifis and even Dr. Fernando Medina, the chief human capital officer with AISD, said the end result is the same: the number is too high and results in a critical shortage in staff.
"We know that because of the shortage in staff throughout the country, specifically in the special education, it becomes a challenge to fill vacancies and when vacancies aren't filled. It puts a pressure and a challenge on employees," Medina said.
Medina also said he has met with many of the speech pathologists, including those who have resigned.
"They've expressed the workload that they likely expressed to you and I definitely recognize that and, for that reason, we recognize we have to be more competitive with our market adjustments, with our stipends, with our recruiting efforts," Dr. Medina said.
Mathews confirmed to KVUE that she met with Medina last year.
AISD administrators sent staffers a letter on Tuesday regarding the new plan. Read it below:
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