Theresa Nuestro’s sons are among the thousands of Chicago Public Schools students who depend on special education classroom assistants to keep them safe and focused in classes.
That’s why Nuestro and others were alarmed when CPS told principals last month it was changing how these assistants, known as SECAs, will be assigned to students, especially as the school district faces a $730 million budget deficit. They worry CPS is trying to find savings on the backs of their children, as has happened in the past.
“SECAs are the front-line responders when my son’s blood sugar levels drop to dangerously low levels,” said Nuestro, whose sons are both on the autism spectrum. One has a severe peanut allergy and the other is diabetic. “It is the SECA who communicates when my son is struggling to self-regulate. … These moments are daily life for many autistic students and without adequate SECA support, our children struggle to learn.”
CPS officials acknowledge that “significant” changes are being made. Self-contained classrooms will have fewer automatically assigned SECAs. In classes with students who have moderate needs, one will be assigned, rather than two. More could be added based on need.
Officials insist this is not being done to reduce costs.
“My commitment in this role is to make sure that special education students have the resources they need based on our both legal and moral obligations to these students,” said Mike Sitkowski, CPS’ chief budget officer. “And so while there are some changes, I’ll say right off the bat that, unequivocally, these are not related to the overall budget challenges CPS is facing.”
Joshua Long, the head of CPS’ Office for Students with Disabilities, said he was concerned that some schools were overstaffed.
CPS budgeted for 6,900 SECA positions last year, up from 3,400 just five years ago. There are 2,700 more disabled students, but with the extra positions the SECA-to-student ratios dropped from 1:15 in 2019 to 1:7 this school year.
Long also points to research by University of Vermont emeritus professor of special education Michael Giangreco that found aides can thwart students.
“He has talked about how paraprofessional support can sometimes inadvertently reduce student independence and reduce their ability to interact with same-age peers,” he said.
Giangreco’s research also shows that teachers don’t interact as much with students who have aides. When assistants who are not trained as teachers are left to instruct students, it shortchanges students, he said in a video where he outlines what he describes as an overreliance on paraprofessional support.
In CPS, too many SECA positions can also create inequities, Long said. Schools on the South and West sides with mostly low-income students tend to have trouble finding SECAs, with 1 in 5 positions vacant in some areas, CPS records show. Meanwhile, schools on the North Side with more affluent families have all their SECA positions filled.
“We have to make sure that we don’t over-allocate and put resources where they are not needed,” Long said.
But Long knows that making any shift in special education will be met with suspicion.
About 10 years ago, officials targeted special education for cuts by making seemingly technical changes that were secretly intended to reduce costs. Once that overhaul was revealed, the state assigned a monitor to oversee CPS’ special education department.
CPS also has an increasing number of students in special education and the cost to educate them has been rising — making it an area where officials might look for savings. The budget for the coming year has yet to be released, but last year CPS planned to spend about $437 million on SECAs.
Sitkowski said the school district plans to spend the same on special education overall in the coming year as it did in the last year, about $1.4 billion.
Still, some parents and SECAs think the changes will lead to reduced support, despite what CPS says.
Jeannine Carrasquillo has been a SECA for 21 years and says she has seen the school district try to balance the budget by reducing SECAs. She thinks CPS is lying by saying it isn’t trying to save money. She says it is hard to explain how difficult it is to manage in a classroom with students with a lot of needs.
“I work with runners, screamers,” she said. “It is impossible for me to do my job without enough hands.”
This past year, her special education cluster program started out with two SECAs but got a third one after a child ran out of the classroom, she said.
When she has the time and space, Carrasquillo said she can really have an impact on her students. “I love to see the change in kids over time,” she said.
Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Follow her on X @WBEZeducation and @sskedreporter.
