Friends, supporters, and members of the Lexington community,
Educators in your schools are suffering. They have been underpaid, overworked, and
disrespected by your school committee and district leaders. They have been forced to work two, three, or even four jobs just to survive, and still lack the ability to take paid family or medical leave. They have been without a contract for the entirety of this school year, and it feels like they are nowhere near getting one. Who are these educators?
We are Unit C. We are the paraprofessionals, caretakers, aides, and educational support staff who help our students—your children—experience the best that Lexington Public Schools has to offer. We work with students in the special education department, those with individualized education plans, 504 plans, and any students with special needs or accommodations. Every day, we provide these students with the support they need to reach their fullest potential.
We love our students and find great emotional fulfillment in the work we do, but emotional fulfillment cannot pay rent, buy groceries, heat our homes, or keep the lights on. We are struggling to live on the wages provided to us, and the educational attainment of your children is suffering in kind. Our unit is constantly turning over educators—a revolving door that keeps spinning due to low wages, a lack of respect, and little professional training or support. Without experienced educators in Unit C roles, student supports are, at best, disrupted by turnover. In many instances, we must indeterminately absorb roles and coverage for departed colleagues to ensure student needs are met, as these positions often go unfilled until contract workers are hired.
In order to perform our jobs to the best of our abilities, we are asking for livable wages,
relevant and applicable professional development opportunities, accurate job descriptions, and the respect demanded by any professional role. These demands, as simple as they are, have been unmet by district leadership. Their inaction makes it clear that they consider Unit C roles to be expendable stepping stones to “real” positions, but this is categorically untrue. Despite poor compensation and challenging working conditions, Unit C members are deeply passionate and dedicated to what we do. And do our kids truly deserve anything less?
Lexington has long been a renowned district, recognized in particular for its outstanding support of students with special education needs. This reputation is built on the backs of Unit C, and it is unfair and unjust not to credit them for it through a fair contract. Lexington is great because of the people who work to make it great. We believe the time has come for the Lexington School Committee, Town Council, and Town Manager to recognize that fact.
In solidarity,
The Unit C Contract Action Team
I have a reputation for watching every penny and insisting that we spend our public dollars wisely. I find the above letter from the Unit C negotiation committee upsetting. One of the reasons I have been asking for an organizational chart of LPS personnel since last spring is because it is my belief that our system is not using our educators as well as it could.
Unit C members are critical to allowing many or our students to be included in regular classrooms; to assist teachers who have number of students over contractual max; to fill in for educators who need to leave the classroom, etc. Do I think these paraprofessionals, caretakers, aides, and educational support staff are invaluable? YES!, and so do the many parents whose children benefit from their attention while in the classroom. Not only are all our children getting a better education, but they are a bargain (too much of one at present). Even if we start paying them a living wage and pay them to meet with parents (adding the often-missing information link from school to parents), they will still be worth much more than we can pay them.
Our School Committee, whose role it is to oversee LPS budget, does not have a personnel org chart from which they can determine how many educators, who spend no time with students, we are employing. We have between 10%-20% of students across the board who read below grade level who would benefit from addition support. We have Unit C members who have been without a contract for a long time. We need more educators and support personnel in the classrooms to maintain the excellent education LPS are known for.
Let’s hope that our elected SC members finally examine the budget and reallocate resources into the classrooms where they will do the most good, and that they will recognize the need to pay Unit C members for the additional meeting times and other services they provide for the benefit of our children.
We should not be prioritizing spending on an expensive building project over paying our employees reasonable wages. The educators and employees who interact with our kids daily are the most valuable resource LPS has – please treat them that way.
Unfortunately Olga, Bloom proponents complain that the high school is literally crumbling, when what’s crumbling are finances of the people we depend on to teach our children. So sad that we pinch on Unit C salaries while we spend lavishly on a high school.. to keep property values up (stated preference of a SBC member). An embarrassment of massive proportions.
There were and still are alternative approaches to address the high school condition which are less costly. It requires some compromise, but many seem to be against that.
The MSBA process is broken – it puts blinders on towns, mandates biased school building committees where voting members and their bosses are on the same committee; rewards and encourages massive spending on schools when instead it should encourage cost efficiency, reduction, cost deferral and looking at the big picture.
The big picture is that costs are rising everywhere and that school financing does not stand apart from everything else town residents are paying for.
In the face of rising costs, the answer is reduce and compromise – not “spend big, spend it all, and the sooner the better”. Who does that?
Dump the expensive high school. Redesign it completely – making cost the number one driver, and save the money to instead pay UNIT C members well – so we have good teachers and aides who stay in Lexington.
It’s hard to reconcile a school administration whose self acclaimed motto is “compassion in all we do” and who are pushing a wildly expensive building project with the one who appear to not be providing decent wages nor acceptable working terms for our Unit C employees and have allowed a contract to go so long unsettled. Before we talk about fancy expensive buildings – what we need are a solid, well paid, and motivated staff team to teach our kids. We need to be mindful of budgets – but we need first and foremost to pay our staff. They are the cornerstone of education.
Thank you Unit C leadership for letting us know your areas of concerns
Here are some highlights on your posting ——-
“They have been underpaid, overworked, and
disrespected by your school committee and district leaders”
“In order to perform our jobs to the best of our abilities, we are asking for livable wages,
relevant and applicable professional development opportunities, accurate job descriptions, and the respect demanded by any professional role. These demands, as simple as they are, have been unmet by district leadership.”
“Despite poor compensation and challenging working conditions, Unit C members are deeply passionate and dedicated to what we do. And do our kids truly deserve anything less?”
“We believe the time has come for the Lexington School Committee, Town Council, and Town Manager to recognize that fact.”
At the outset let us thank you for your unique participation and help students in fulfilling their needs – education and otherwise
Your reasons, needs and else seems to be very reasonable but your statements are little too strong? so how can we pursue to provide an environment where every one is content .
Question is what we can do?
We are only hearing your side but we need to know why this is happening etc from all leaders you have mentioned.
Budget, fiscal responsibility ,priorities new schools etc can be factors in thinking in the minds of leaders for your areas of concerns not moving forward .
I think what you may want to do if not done already is find out from surrounding towns their state of affairs about the areas of concerns you have mentioned such as salary etc as comparison
and can help to talk about ?
Rather than blame and flame how about starting again with newly elected officers meet them independently and may be propose independent task force – start a new beginning as this town leadership is very progressive and accommodative .
“We believe the time has come for the Lexington School Committee, Town Council, and Town Manager to recognize that fact.”
I agree time has come to restart dialogues with leadership as you are playing a major role in school and we need to respect Unit C members
Let me thank Unit C members for the work they do for chiidrens who needs that special care and warmth
“We need to be mindful of budgets – but we need first and foremost to pay our staff. They are the cornerstone of education.”
So says Marianne M McKenna
Thank you
Dinesh Patel
Precinct 6 tm
Definitely support prioritizing student facing staff pay, quality of life, and involvement in decision making processes. I taught for 6 years in an extremely challenging setting and having an engaged and caring paraprofessional was absolutely key to my and my students’ success. If the lexobserver article from a few months backs describes the asks accurately, Unit C is asking for 2 steps to be removed from the step-increase pay structure and to be included in staff meetings regarding their students – is that correct?
In Massachusetts, the School Committee negotiates contracts with teacher union. In our town SC consists of 5 people: Eileen Jay, Larry Freeman, Kathleen Lenihan, Sarah Carter, and Sara Cuthbertson.
Would any of these town electives comment of the issue?
The article calls for the Lexington School Committee, Town Council, and Town Manager to recognize importance of the teachers. Too many people… Who is responsible for the lack of attention to the problem?
Thank you to all who have commented. I’d like to respond to a few of the points made/questions asked in the comments above as a member of the Unit C Contract Action Team.
Firstly, I would like to clarify that Unit C has been bargaining this contract for the better part of a year. It expired in September and, when settled, must be back-dated using retroactive pay. In other words, Unit C members are awaiting desperately needed funds during record-high inflation, market volatility, and skyrocketing costs of living. They have shared stories of their financial strife and unsafe working conditions at the beginning of each of their bargaining sessions. Despite this, the current offer from the District Bargaining Team remains the same as it did in spring of 2024. This status quo is unacceptable, and Unit C members feel strongly about the topic; thus, the language of this letter is “strong”, as Dr. Patel suggests.
Unit C, and the Lexington Education Association as a whole, always strive to work collaboratively with the community and district leaders. We have followed the rules of the bargaining process, have made amendments to our original proposals, and are now asking for the District Bargaining Team to meet us halfway and find creative solutions.
We understand that many of the entities addressed at the end of the letter are new to their roles, and agree that this represents an opportunity. In writing this letter, the Contract Action Team is working to bring this topic to the attention of the Lexington community and all those with a vested interest in our schools, particularly parents of children receiving the special education services staffed by Unit C members. With these supports already under threat from our federal government, it is more important now than ever to have justly compensated and supported professionals in these student-facing, critical roles.
What can parents do to support your fair contract?
As a parent, I have emailed the School Committee with a request to resolve the UnitC contract issues noted above. No response, though. Please submit your request here: https://www.lexingtonma.gov/formcenter/School-Committee-69/Contact-Us-School-Committee-149