State federation offers intense summer training for a range of school staff in New York

People looking for natural beauty and other tourist attractions flock to Lake George, N.Y., every summer. For the past two years, the visitors have included a group of New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) members who do various jobs in schools.

The NYSUT school-related personnel (or SRPs, as support staff are known in New York) were there for serious work--four days of intensive training on a range of issues central to PSRPs' jobs. The group, which included everyone from bus drivers and food service workers to secretaries and teaching assistants, returned home with the skills to train their co-workers and other SRPs in the state. As with much of the AFT and affiliate training with PSRPs, NYSUT uses a train-the-trainer model designed to equip participants to share what they learn by presenting workshops to other staff in their own or neighboring districts.

Some of the participants from the 2000 training--the first year of the new SRP pilot project--had the chance to do just that this past school year. Janet Gutekunst, a bus driver and member of the Frontier Central Employees Association, presented a workshop on managing student behavior outside the classroom for a group of SRPs in the nearby East Aurora school district. (Another workshop deals with managing student behavior in classroom settings.)

"They really liked it," Gutekunst says. "They said it was the first time they had received training from someone who had done this work herself." Gutekunst admits that she was "overwhelmed" by the amount of material she and the others covered during the Lake George training, but with practice and a focus on refining her presentation skills, the 22-year veteran driver felt fully prepared to lead the training on her own.

"We do spend a great deal of time on presentation skills," says NYSUT staffer Alice Brody, who designed the summer training. "That way, after the training, they're confident they can go out and present a workshop."

Requests for the newly trained SRPs to conduct workshops usually come through NYSUT's regional offices, which work to determine who is available, how their job can be covered, if necessary, and other details. In addition, the trainers can present workshops during conferences, after school and on weekends when their fellow SRPs are more likely to be able to attend.

As Gutekunst pointed out, school staff are especially receptive to training that's conducted by someone who does the same kind of work they do. But the NYSUT training is designed to prepare people to train a wide range of PSRPs. Jackie Ervolina, a secretary and member of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, says there was a lot of discussion in her summer training on this subject. "We all agreed that once you're trained, you're qualified to give that training" to just about any group, even if it means, for example, someone who isn't a secretary working with a group of clerical employees. What little training PSRPs have gotten in the past, she adds, has almost never been given by other support staff.

That's one reason why the SRPs who have gone through the NYSUT summer training are so excited about the program. "This gives us hope that we can get this kind of staff development to our members throughout the state," Ervolina says. "It's something that's always the top priority for our SRPs. They need it and they want it."

Among the Lake George offerings is a comprehensive set of seven modules related to special education, covering topics such as disability awareness, managing student behavior, working safely with students with disabilities, and paraprofessionals' roles and responsibilities. Charlott King, a member of the Hempstead Teaching Assistants Association, plans to be trained in as many of the modules as possible because there's a huge need to help new hires in her district.

"A lot of paras complain about not having any training," she says. "They are hired and placed in special ed. classrooms because that's where the jobs are. They don't have any idea what to do with those type of students."

In addition to helping upgrade the skills of individual SRPs, the training has proved beneficial for their local unions, because the training shows that the union is helping its members in new ways. A long-time union activist, Gutekunst says the program can also help unite teachers and PSRPs in the same local. "Sometimes people ask why we're in a teachers union," she says. "This helps them see why we are."

What's more, Ervolina says, better training opportunities for all school staff help them feel a more integral part of the education system. "This shows that we care about our institution and that we're doing the best jobs we can for the kids."