While outsourcing services could save the school district money, outsourcing school aides is not something the Voorhees School District wants to implement.
According to director of special services Elaine Hill, there are approximately 54 aides in the school district.
“The aides are there to support the teachers for instruction and manage behaviors,” she said, adding aides are also there for the safety of the children. “The aides are assigned, for the most part, to students with disabilities.”
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 225,471 students in New Jersey are part of the Individualized Education Program, a written instructional program for students with disabilities. In Voorhees, there were approximately 552 IEP students in the 2011–2012 school year, the report says.
Training for the school aides is done throughout the school year, Hill said. Aides who are working with autistic children need more training.
“They are trained in a variety of areas. A lot of it has to do with managing behavior and interaction with kids appropriately,” she said, adding the aides will work with students if they need help with social skills. As far as academics, the teachers in the classroom guide the aides.
Aides who work with children with autism are additionally trained with the Applied Behavioral Analysis training plan — a program that trains individuals how to apply behavioral principles to everyday situations that would increase or decrease targeted behavior in autistic children, the ABA’s website says.
Hill said the program helps the aides with teaching and reinforcing in the classroom.
Aides assigned to children with autism also transition with the students from grade to grade.
“Children with autism require consistency from one year to the next,” she said.
Although Hill has not had any experience with outside agencies, she said there are a few questions that would be raised when outsourcing school aides.
“The questions would be whether they would be consistent and what’s the attrition rate with outside agencies?” she asked, adding there might be issues with the outsourced aides’ willingness to comply with the school district’s standards as well as the lack of oversight and the aides’ ability to properly work with a child.
She said there is also sense of loyalty some of the long-term aides have with the district.
Recently, a group of parents did an in-service for the aides, sharing their experiences as a parent with a disabled child.
“It gave them a chance to empathize,” she said, calling them strong advocates for the children. “[They] help to make their school day pleasant and comfortable.”
