The School Committee and the Wareham Education Association have agreed on a three-year contract that gives beginning paraprofessionals a $3,000 raise, as well as larger and earlier bonuses throughout their time at Wareham Public Schools. 

The School Committee unanimously approved the contract at its meeting on Thursday, March 16, and the Wareham Education Association approved it on Tuesday, March 7.

“It’s a done deal,” said Superintendent Dr. Matthew D’Andrea. 

The approval of the contract ends over a year of negotiations and protests from paraprofessionals, who assist teachers and special education students. The paraprofessionals have campaigned for higher wages and more attention from the School Committee.

“It feels good, and I think [the paraprofessionals] are happy with it,” said Wareham Education Association President Deanna Semple. “Everybody’s obviously glad that it’s over.”

The new contract increases a Wareham paraprofessional’s starting pay from $23,013 a year to $26,434 a year. The old contract gave paraprofessionals 20 “steps,” or two percent annual pay raises, throughout their career. Now, there are 10. The salary that paraprofessionals would originally have received in their seventh year is now the salary they get in their first year. 

“It took a while for beginning paras to make a decent wage,” Semple said, “but we eliminated the first six steps, so now a beginning para will make considerably more than they were [making].”

D’Andrea said that paraprofessionals will now receive a 2.5% raise in their second year, and a 2.75% raise in their third year.

The annual longevity bonuses for longtime paraprofessionals have not only increased, but are starting earlier. In the old contract, paraprofessionals would receive an extra $400 starting their 15th year, $600 starting their 18th, $800 starting their 21st and $1,000 starting their 25th. 

The new contract gives paraprofessionals an extra $500 starting their ninth year, $700 starting their 12th, $900 starting their 15th, $1,100 starting their 18th, $1,300 starting their 21st and $1,500 starting their 25th. 

Semple praised the “tenacity” of the 60 paraprofessionals who organized to negotiate the terms of the contract.

“[It was] their willingness to continue to show up at School Committee meetings,” she said, “and be outside holding signs, and emailing and writing letters and talking to the community. All of that stuff helped sway the School Committee to get creative with their negotiations.”

At first, Semple said, the School Committee members “weren't coming to the table,” but they took notice of an extensive email campaign which involved students, teachers and parents from Wareham as well as other school districts. 

At the March 16 School Committee meeting, D’Andrea thanked School Committee Vice Chair Geoff Swett and Secretary Joyce Bacchiocchi for their “hard work and hours” negotiating with paraprofessionals, and following District protocol “even when there was public pressure not do do so.”

Swett said that while he respected the paraprofessionals’ demands, the District did not have enough money to raise their pay.

“That all changed,” he said, when he saw the funding increases in Governor Maura Healey’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024.

The budget still has to go through the Massachusetts House, Senate and Conference Committee, but since both chambers are controlled by Democrats, Swett expects Healey’s budget to pass and the school to get the necessary funding.

“It’s certainly fair to the paraprofessionals,” he said, “and it’s something we can manage as a School Committee.”

While the contract is technically good for three years, since there was no contract for most of the 2022-23 school year, it will only last for two years. Negotiations for a new contract will begin in 2025.