Teacher aides get extension of deadline

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Teacher aides, under federal pressure to prove they are qualified to stay in the classroom, will get extra time to comply under a new Education Department policy.

To keep their jobs, aides in schools that receive federal poverty aid have been told to become highly qualified by January 2006 — marking four years since Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act. That deadline, set in the law, applies to aides hired before the law passed.

Now the time frame for aides to get qualified will be pushed back to the end of the 2005-06 school year, the same deadline for teachers in poor schools to prove their qualifications.

The change is good news to the Hawai'i Department of Education, where about one-third of the 2,513 aides were still unqualified as of last year.

Since many aides would have difficulty meeting the two-year educational requirement by the middle of the school year, the change makes sense, said Gerald Okamoto, the DOE's assistant superintendent of the Office of Human Resources.

"It's logical and provides the maximum benefit to aides who want to become highly qualified and continue educating our children," Okamoto said.

Deputy Secretary Ray Simon said yesterday that it was unusual to have a deadline for aides that fell in the middle of the school year and that differed from the teachers' deadline.

In a letter to Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who sought the extended deadline, Simon said the idea was reasonable and he confirmed that his agency would give aides the extra time.

The American Federation of Teachers, whose members include instructional aides, had also sought the change in a letter to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. The union's president, Edward McElroy, said it was "simply a matter of fairness."

To be deemed highly qualified, aides, or paraprofessionals, must compile at least two years of college study or earn at least an associate's degree. Their other option is to pass a test proving their knowledge of reading, writing and math and their ability to help teach.

Newly hired aides must have such qualifications before they can get the jobs.

Overall, an estimated 1 million teacher aides help run the nation's classrooms. They work with students individually, reinforce the teacher's lessons and help keep order in class.