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Sen. Doug McCrory, D-Hartford, urged students to apply for the Aspiring Educators Diversity Scholarship Program
Jessica Harkay/CT Mirror
Sen. Doug McCrory, D-Hartford, urged students to apply for the Aspiring Educators Diversity Scholarship Program
Legislation passed out of the Education Committee last week would raise starting salaries for educators and make it easier to obtain teacher certification, measures that some lawmakers hope will address teacher shortages and aid ongoing efforts to recruit and retain a diverse teacher workforce in Connecticut.
Language in Senate Bill 381 and House Bill 5348 proposes using state subsidies to raise the starting salary for educators up to $60,000 and to $45,000 for paraeducators, respectively.
But the bills could face an uphill battle due to their cost at a time when Gov. Ned Lamont and legislative leaders are hesitant to step outside the state’s so-called fiscal guardrails and others, like social service agencies and higher education institutions, are also competing for more state funding. State subsidies, through the Office of Policy and Management, would be responsible for compensating school districts for the costs of the higher salaries, according to language in the bills.
“The situation we have here is systemic. It has been in place for a long time, and we could have done a lot more about this but we have sat on hands and knees and did nothing,” said Sen. Doug McCrory, co-chair of the Education Committee. “Research shows us that we have barriers in place that have made it very difficult to diversify this teaching population.”
Salary increases
TEACH Connecticut, a nonprofit that’s partnered with the state education department to recruit more educators into the field, reported that the average starting salary for teachers is around $43,000 — a key issue in terms of recruitment, retention and diversity, stakeholders said.
“Education is a workforce, and we’re in competition with a lot of other spaces to get people to come into our classrooms and teach,” said Kate Dias, the president of the Connecticut Education Association, the largest teachers union in the state. “We have to recognize that the same person who is in college considering ‘Do I want to be an actuary, an engineer or a math teacher?’ … [gets] to look at the compensation differences.”
Math teachers don’t expect to make the same amount of money as an engineer, Dias said.
“We’re not fools,” she said, adding that if education wants to remain on par with competing workforces, the range needs to be closer.
“I can’t be saying I’m gonna start at $42,000 as an educator, where I now have to live with my parents or I have to get three roommates or I could start as an engineer at $65,000 and be contemplating a complete different lifestyle,” Dias said.
Dias said a $60,000 starting salary, as proposed in SB 381, could also address an issue regarding “the pathway to the maximum” earning range, which has often been a reason teachers leave low-paying districts or the field completely.
Provisions in HB 5348 addressed a handful of issues pertaining to paraeducators, including formally defining the job and its responsibilities and raising the starting salary to $45,000.
Paraeducators in Connecticut currently make, on average, between $16.25 to $23.32 an hour, or around $33,000 to $48,000, according to ZipRecruiter.
Certification
The biggest concern with changes to teacher certification was the question of whether a streamlined process would come at the expense of quality.
Lawmakers and Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker say no, and have clarified that existing legislation was severely outdated and changes are long overdue after remaining essentially untouched for nearly 30 years.
The legislation includes changes to the three-tiered system of certification, where it would essentially eliminate a tier.
Currently, teachers must obtain their initial certification, which is valid for three years, then obtain a provisional certificate that’s valid for eight years.
Teachers can apply for their professional certificate after the provisional certificate and after “30 school months of successful appropriate experience in a Connecticut public or approved nonpublic school under the provisional educator certificate” and additional course requirements, according to the state Department of Education.
The proposed legislation would now allow a teacher to qualify for professional status if they hold an initial or provisional certificate and have completed at least 50 school months of teaching, completed a teacher education and mentoring program and either hold a master’s degree in the subject or completed an alternative pathway approved by the state.
Other changes would allow elementary school teachers to teach more than first through sixth grade.
“With this bill passed by the Education Committee, we are well on our way to implementing additional pathways and flexibility to help these educators begin to put an end to the teaching shortage Connecticut has been suffering for years,” said Daniel Pearson, executive director of Educators for Excellence-Connecticut, a nonprofit policy organization.
Full story on ctmirror.org
Abstract art display in Wassaic for Upstate Art Weekend, July 18-21.
WASSAIC — Art enthusiasts from all over the country flocked to the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley to participate in Upstate Art Weekend, which ran from July 18 to July 21.
The event, which “celebrates the cultural vibrancy of Upstate New York”, included 145 different locations where visitors could enjoy and interact with art.
On Saturday, July 20, The Wassaic Project hosted numerous community events. Will Hutnick, the director of artistic programming, said “We’ve been a part of it since the beginning, this is the fifth year of UPAW.”
Most of the action was based at Maxon Mills, the seven-floor grain mill located in the heart of Wassaic. On exhibit was work from 30 artists, 18 of whom were past residents of The Wassaic Project. “Artists can come and do a residency here, meaning they live and work with one another for a couple months at a time,” Hutnick stated.
The first floor held work by Petra Szilagyi, who uses dirt and linseed oil to construct images of paranormal concepts, most of which include bats. They reflected that a recent trip to a fifth sense competition in Vietnam was the influence behind the exhibit.
Across the floor was Tiffany Smith’s interactive installation which incorporated plants and wicker chairs, all of which were objects associated with her Carribean upbringing. “The room being filled with plants is symbolic of hurricane prep which often included bringing the plants from outside into the house,” Smith said.
As visitors made their way up the narrow wooden stairs, music could be heard from behind the walls. The echoing music was Daniel Shieh’s installation, entitled Mother’s Anthem, which played a recording of the American Anthem in 30 languages. The languages ranged from Spanish and Italian to Navajo and Bengali.
Each floor was filled with artwork of all mediums, including painting, fibers, collage and photography. Rachel Bussières, who switched her concentration after watching the 2017 solar eclipse, uses varying light sources to produce lumen prints. During the wildfires, she recounted that she “made a new exposure each day to capture the changing air quality”.
Luciana Abait also incorporates the natural world into her pieces, instead using maps. An environmental activist originally from Argentina, Abait’s work highlights “environmental fragility, specifically the impacts it has on immigrants.” Her installation that is currently on display at Maxon Mills, takes the form of a mountain range built solely from maps of the US and Argentina.
Throughout the day, visitors could “Arm Wrestle 4 A Popsicle”. Winners had the choice of 3 playfully flavored trout-inspired popsicles - Nightcrawler, Power Bait, and Salmon Roe. Artist Katie Peck, who spent the day in costume as a rainbow trout, encouraged guests to step up and try their hand at an arm wrestle.
Shibori Indigo dyeing, group meditation, and dance workshops were open for community members of all ages as well.
While the daytime activities fostered appreciation of fixed art, a dance party until midnight at The Lantern Inn offered guests a space for performative art.
When describing the environment of The Wassaic Project, Smith emphasized, “It’s all community, it’s all love.”
A serene scene from the Amenia garden tour.
AMENIA — The much-anticipated annual Amenia Garden Tour drew a steady stream of visitors to admire five local gardens on Saturday, July 13, each one demonstrative of what a green thumb can do. An added advantage was the sense of community as neighbors and friends met along the way.
Each garden selected for the tour presented a different garden vibe. Phantom’s Rock, the garden of Wendy Goidel, offered a rocky terrain and a deep rock pool offering peaceful seclusion and anytime swims. Goidel graciously welcomed visitors and answered questions about the breathtaking setting.
Amenia Finance Director Charlie Miller welcomed visitors to his Bog Hollow Road garden in Wassaic, a manicured expansive yard with well-placed garden beds framing a far-reaching view. He said he plans carefully each winter for the next spring’s improvement.
The organic, environmentally responsible Maitri Farm was next, a lesson in coordinating agriculture with natural balance. The farm stand and a walk among the greenhouses brought visitors together.
Near the center of Amenia was the garden of Polly Pitts-Garvin, offering a chance to visit a robust vegetable garden with raised beds to be envious of and a remarkable absence of any insects or usual vegetable garden problems.
At Chez Cheese, the vast garden acreage surrounding the 1850s historic home of Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips in Millerton, visitors could begin at refreshment stations where walking tour maps of the 15-acre property were available. There were streams and ponds with docks, and a dozen bridges arranged around the landscape. In the 19th-century, the property had been the home of the Wilson Cheese Factory, inspiring the name of the estate.
The Amenia Garden Tour was supported this year by Paley’s Garden Center in Sharon.
Gary Dodson working a tricky pool on the Schoharie Creek, hoping to lure something other than a rock bass from the depths.
PRATTSVILLE, N.Y. — The Schoharie Creek, a fabled Catskill trout stream, has suffered mightily in recent decades.
Between pressure from human development around the busy and popular Hunter Mountain ski area, serious flooding, and the fact that the stream’s east-west configuration means it gets the maximum amount of sunlight, the cool water required for trout habitat is simply not as available as in the old days.
This is not a new phenomenon. It does seem to be getting worse, though.
Gary Dodson and I convened where the creek makes its final run into the Schoharie reservoir, part of the New York City water supply system, on a semi-broiling Thursday afternoon, July 11.
The goal was simple. Catch smallmouth bass, which abound in the lower section of the river.
This was hot stuff — as in an 80-degree water temperature.
The air temperature was actually slightly less at 77.
After negotiating the intensely slippery rocks, festooned with treacherous algae, the first major pool presented several difficulties, with a back eddy competing with a main flow and several large trees draped about the whole thing.
I hit on the simplest strategy, which was to flip a weighted attractor fly called a Tequilley into the start of the eddy so it would proceed slowly but steadily into the maelstrom, sinking all the while.
This worked. A proper adult smallmouth, with bronze coloring and vertical stripes, took the thing.
The point-and-shoot camera finally died, however, and I was not going to try to fumble my phone out for a nice but routine fish photo.
Why not?
Because I guarantee the fish would have made a sudden, last-moment bolt for freedom, causing me to drop the device into the drink.
Gary moved downstream while I continued trying to annoy the residents of the pool, succeeding a couple of times with different colored Wooly Buggers.
Then we all got bored and I moved off, where Gary was catching rock bass and cussing them out for not being something else.
I have to admit, they are not the most compelling critters. Something about the red eyes.
This latest trip was dominated by extremely tedious and distasteful Harry Homeowner activities, but on both Wednesday and Thursday mornings I prowled Woodland Valley Creek. By “morning” I mean “dawn,” because that was when the water temps were down to a barely acceptable 64.
I made the acquaintance of several stocked browns and of a handful of their wild cousins. The wild fish are smaller and nimbler.
The successful ploy was an Adams wet fly, size 16, drifted behind something big, like a Parachute Adams or Stimulator.