Teaching Assistants Get Boost Up Career Ladder : Program Offers Academic, Social and Financial Aid to Help Latinos Advance to Teaching Jobs

Linda Serrano, a bilingual teaching assistant at Bridge Street Elementary School in Boyle Heights, has been studying for her teaching credential for nine years. She expects to graduate from Cal State Los Angeles in 1993, but she will not believe it until she sees her diploma.

“What am I doing wrong?” asked Serrano, a 42-year-old mother of three. “Am I going to get my degree and my first Social Security check at the same time?”

Serrano is one of 10,000 teaching assistants, 70% of whom are bilingual Latinas, employed by the Los Angeles Unified School District. Like most assistants, Serrano must balance working, studying and caring for her family. And, like many, she believes that her long road toward a teaching career has been a lonely struggle.

Too often, she said, “we don’t get any help, (colleges) don’t show us any direction, and TAs who have gone through it don’t come back and show us what to do.”

Changing this feeling of isolation is the focus of the new USC Latino Teacher Project, a program designed to support Spanish-speaking aides studying to become teachers.

By creating a “career track”--a program of academic, social and financial aid--the project seeks to speed assistants through the often confusing process of education and certification.

The program is sponsored by USC, the school district, the United Teachers-Los Angeles union, the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Service Employees International Union Local 99 and the Tomas Rivera Center.

The first installment of a $1.2-million, three-year grant from the Ford Foundation has been granted to launch the project among assistants in South-Central Los Angeles schools. Of 450 applicants, between 50 and 100 will be accepted. It will be expanded to 250 assistants districtwide in 1993 and 500 assistants at the Los Angeles County level by 1994, said project director Mike Genzuk.

South-Central Los Angeles was chosen because it has the “highest number of non-English-speaking students for the lowest number of bilingual teachers,” Genzuk said.

Bilingual assistants work alongside teachers in classrooms, correcting homework, translating course material and supervising children. Students with limited English skills often rely on the individual attention of these aides.

By accelerating the assistants’ progress, project planners hope to quickly turn out much-needed bilingual teachers, Genzuk said.

“We have a definite (bilingual teacher) shortage problem,” said Assistant Supt. Amelia McKenna of the school district’s language acquisition and bilingual development branch. The district estimated in 1991 that it would take 10 years to hire enough bilingual teachers for its 242,000 students with limited English proficiency, 90% of whom speak Spanish.

The project is important, McKenna said, because it will help fill teaching positions from within the district. “We have a great pool of potential teachers right here.”

Because some assistants left high school years ago or never mastered certain subjects, the project will provide refresher classes in math and composition. Teaching techniques and Spanish grammar courses will be offered along with preparation for the state credentialing exam, Genzuk said.

Promising aides often have been held back from teaching because of limited incomes, said Norma Lozoya, a business representative with Local 99. Some need help because the district limits more than half of them to three hours of work each day, with pay ranging from $8 to $10.20 per hour, she said.

Because the project cannot fund every participant, consultants will help aides apply for scholarships from other groups. Project monies will go to those still in need after grants are awarded, said Genzuk.

Less than two years ago, dissatisfaction with wages, benefits and education incentives motivated a strike by assistants that prompted long and often bitter negotiations between Local 99 and the school district. The resulting contract, signed in 1991, guaranteed higher wages, vacation time and bonuses to bilingual assistants and those studying for a teaching credential.

Despite the increases, many aides feel their situation has not improved.

“The strike helped slightly, but TAs I know complain about the (lack of work) hours,” said Gilbert Serrano, a 20-year-old assistant at Bridge Street School, where his mother, Linda, also works. “A lot of people count on those checks because they support themselves.”

Insurance benefits offered in the contract have also caused complaints, said Linda Serrano. “You have to work 80 hours (in one month) to get insurance, but they don’t let us work 60.”

Some aides also believe that they do their jobs without the respect of teachers, parents and administrators, she said. A young assistant is sometimes treated “like a second-class citizen,” she said.

However, Susy Valenzuela, a bilingual assistant at Euclid Avenue Elementary School in Boyle Heights, said that working with supportive teachers makes her job easier. “They’re always giving me tips,” said Valenzuela, 22, an East Los Angeles College student.

But away from Euclid, she admits feeling stranded. “Evening students just don’t get as much help as day students,” she said.

An objective of the project is to “involve teachers as mentors for the paraprofessionals,” said Day Higuchi of UTLA. “They need more incentives, counseling, a mentor who could be a resource.”

“We have an opportunity to make a dramatic impact,” said Genzuk. “Unless you have teachers sensitive to the needs of these students, we’re going to lose a whole generation of children.”