Assistants need boost, too

To our leaders: I thought, like many people, that teachers had it easy. After six years working in public education, I have a different view. I have permanent injuries and have shed blood for my students.

As an instructional assistant, I am required to have a college degree to teach under a certificated teacher. We are required to take annually renewed courses. We start out our pay at $10.68 an hour. Some custodians with high school diplomas start at over $12 an hour. We are the lowest-paid school employees.

Students that people would have simply written off have been changed, and families once again have hope, all through special education. It would have cost the state more to institutionalize than it did to educate and train. Oh, the difference we make.

But legislators and some of their colleagues count us as trivial, and our pay perhaps too much, or enough. Did they not increase their per diem, and isn’t their per diem two to three times more than my entire salary per month? They should shed blood for the people they support. We do. Do we have their support, or should we look elsewhere?

Jeff McCullough

Spokane Valley