‘Hung out to dry.’ Paraeducators pack meeting after Richland schools pause layoffs

Richland's school superintendent apologized this week for a hastily announced plan to cut 34 paraeducator positions to help correct a looming budget shortfall this school year.

District officials also acknowledged on Tuesday that they are trying to plug a $2.5 million hole.

They revealed that a big part of the problem is a drop in the district's state matching money for its levy because Richland property assessments jumped so significantly last year.

That means Richland School District will receive $10 million less annually through the state's "Local Effort Assistance" program, or LEA . That program was created in 1987 to adjust for the educational disparities between property-poor districts and high-value school districts.

It also means local taxpayers will shoulder a higher burden to cover general education. A similar, though less dire, scenario occurred earlier this year when the Kennewick School District learned it also would collect millions less from the state due to higher-valued properties.

Three weeks ago, Richland suddenly announced plans to immediately begin laying off some paraeducators to make up for the impending drop in revenue. Days later school officials halted the cuts and said they were regrouping .

On Tuesday, the public was told that administrators are now drafting a comprehensive plan that's expected to be released Friday, Nov. 22, that will prioritize cuts outside of classrooms.

"I think it was too hasty, too quick," Superintendent Shelley Redinger admitted to the school board meeting packed with paraeducators.

Redinger apologized for what she described as a lapse in communication, acknowledging that staff across the district felt blindsided by the announcement three weeks ago that the district would be reducing basic paraeducator hours.

"But I am confident that we'll be able to right the ship and that we will be able to move forward," Redinger said. "It's going to take a couple years, and we're hoping for some changes at the legislative level."

Redinger said it's unclear how much in expenses may need to be cut for next fall when the 2025-26 school year starts.

"I feel terrible, and again I want to apologize," she added. "Someone had said that, 'How do we sleep at night?' I usually sleep really well... and I haven't and I sure don't anymore."

But her apology seemed to come too little, too late for some educators and members of the public.

"There's some untrust right now," Annie Carlson, Richland Paraeducator PSE chapter president, told the Tri-City Herald. "The anxiety level is very, very, very, very, very high."

Carlson said their group of 425 Richland paraeducators feel "hung out to dry" and they're worried about what could happen next.

Job security concerns Since cuts were announced, rumors have swirled about who may be affected and what the district's next plan may be.

That's led some paraeducators concerned about the stability of their jobs to leave. Tuesday night's agenda listed the resignation of six paras.

Some educators say they even began hearing whispers through school leaders that their specific positions may be on the chopping block. Any cuts must be made based on seniority, Carlson said.

Paraeducators are among the lowest-paid, highest-impact district employees, working on-on-one with students and teachers to support instruction and learning. Many have characterized these workers as the "backbone" of the classroom.

"We are not just paras," William Wiley Elementary paraeducator Mary Ennis told the school board during public comments. "We are the first people those students see in the morning, the last ones they see at the end of the day. We bandage their knees. We let them cry when they need to cry. Ask any teacher, principal, counselor — we are the eyes and the ears of this school."

Ennis said she heard rumors the district planned to cut half of Wiley's paraeducators. It comes at a sensitive time as school staff continue to grieve the death paraeducator Amber Rodriguez, who was murdered in April outside the school by her ex-husband.

The average paraeducator take-home pay in Richland is about $24,000 a year, according to a calculation of last year's salary data by the Herald. Nearly all work is on a part-time basis.

While Carlson acknowledged that 20% of district administrator positions in recent months were cut, more needs to be done. She mentioned Redinger's take-home pay, which at $328,000 is the highest in the Mid-Columbia region.

"Do you know how many paras that is?" Carlson said. "If cuts need to be made in the district, it should be from the top down — not from the bottom up."

More than 14,000 students attend class in the Richland School District. It also has 1,400 employees working in 12 elementary schools, four middle schools, two comprehensive high schools and a number of other choice schools.

Richland speaks out for paraeducators A dozen paraeducators and school workers demanded answers during Tuesday's public commenting period, urging the district to act with more transparency and asking it to dispel ongoing rumors.

Some also criticized the school district's decision to ask voters for a $314 million bond to build a third high school during the Nov. 5 election at a time when the district was working to fix its budget crunch.

The decision to put the failed measure on the ballot was made earlier this year , before the district's revenue issues fully came to light. The district has about 900 more high school students than its facilities can account for.

Toni Stocker, a lifelong Richland resident and parent, criticized the lack of accountability for taxpayer dollars.

"We are 2 1/2 months into the school year and have no money for teachers to make copies, yet you wanted $314 million to build a new school that you couldn't afford to run," Stocker said. "How long is cutting people with the lowest wage and the greatest impact on education of the kids going to keep you solvent?"

Mike Pratt, a 1998 Richland High school graduate, parent and the husband of a paraeducator, said the district has acted too liberally with administrator staff raises since the state Supreme Court's McCleary decision.

"If we've been having these problems for that many years, I don't understand why we're giving out raises — sometimes five-figure raises — to folks in this building," he said.

Krista Calvin, president of the Richland Education Association, the union representing the district's certificated teachers, also stood up in support of paras. She urged school leaders and the community to make decisions that help all education support staff.

"They need to earn a living wage, and the only way that's ever going to happen is if we continue to lobby the Legislature," she said. "We need to attract paraeducators. We need to maintain them. We need to show them support and respect. We need to give them that living wage so that they can have security — not just for their own families, but for all of our students and our students' families."

Legislators in Olympia considered a bill earlier this year that would have increased pay for the state's 38,000 paraeducators.

State drops $10M in levy match Last month, Redinger wrote in a letter to the community that "financial hardships" were imminent.

The district passed a balanced general budget over the summer that included $233 million in expenditures and $235 million revenues for the 2024-25 school year. But rising student needs, insufficient state funding and climbing costs for materials, supplies and operations caused the district to put an indefinite freeze recently on all new spending.

At Tuesday's meeting, Richland School Board President Rick Jansons detailed for the first time that matching levy equalization funds from the state were slashed because of higher property assessments.

That reduction does not affect the taxes collected from Richland property owners for the district through the $2.50 educational programs and operations levy , which covers about 15% of the district's budget, Jansons said.

"The administration recognized that. During the 2023-2024 school year, they did make cuts. They made cuts to admin, they made millions of dollars of cuts in contracts and services that were either cut or renegotiated — in terms of the contract, not staffing," Jansons said.

"We're to the point now that we're still not getting that money, we still need to provide the services and we need to do more," he added.

After the blowback from announced paraeducator cuts, the school board asked administrators to come up with a multi-year plan to address the shortfall, which includes re-examining contracts and cutting more vacant positions.

"Our goal is to treat staff as best we can and minimize impacts on students," Jansons said.

School districts across the region and country have made steep cuts in recent years with rising costs to materials and operations, higher insurance costs, lower enrollment, and a "spending cliff" caused by one-time federal dollars dolled out during the COVID pandemic.

Some districts, Richland included, even continued to hire more staff as enrollment fell or plateaued during the pandemic years. Enrollment of full-time equivalents is tied directly to funding school districts receive from the state.

But some say only the Washington Legislature can fix this spending discrepancy to ensure the state's quality of education doesn't slip.

Compared to 2018, the Legislature is sending out $1,000 less per student today, when adjusted for inflation.