Chronicle profile: Jean Avolio, president of Aides of Croton United, is fighting for low paid school workers--and for our kids.

Plus: A description of tasks performed by school aides, in their own words.

Jean Avolio/ Photo by Michael Balter

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Jean Avolio has never considered herself a natural born leader. But at age 18, after a tough childhood, Avolio left home, and she has been on her own ever since. That school of hard knocks gave her the grit and determination to look out for herself, and also to look out for others. Today, at age 55 and with 18 years’ tenure as an aide in the Croton-Harmon school district, she is leading a fight for better working conditions for the roughly 65 teacher’s aides and lunch workers employed in the district’s three schools.

“I am watching out for others because no one watched out for me,” Avolio says.

On Tuesday of this coming week, June 11, the Aides of Croton United (ACU) will resume negotiations on a new contract with Croton-Harmon school district officials. If they can come to an agreement with the district—something that is not at all sure—it will be the ACU’s third three-year contract, all negotiated under Avolio’s leadership.

Avolio has traveled a long road to union activism. She was born in Peekskill, but moved to Croton with her family beginning in the 10th grade. She graduated from Croton-Harmon High School in 1986. She describes herself as a “very spirited” teenager. In those days, high school kids from Croton and Ossining would hang out in the evenings in the parking lot of the New Croton Dam, re-enacting a Westchester version of “American Graffiti.” Also in those days, the police never came to chase them away.

As a student, Avolio gravitated towards English classes and loved to read, although mostly romance novels, she confesses. She did not go to college and never wanted to. Instead, she did a series of jobs, beginning with working as a teller and foreign money exchange clerk at Barclay’s Bank in Ossining, followed by stints as a dental assistant, an optometrist’s assistant, and private child care for many years. Starting in the late 1990s she had a couple of children, and was a stay at home mother for nine years.

In 2006, Avolio began working in the district, always at the Carrie E. Tomkins Elementary School. She was a lunch monitor the first two years, and a teacher’s aide ever since. Back then there was no union. But during 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, when the schools were closed for a week, school workers did not get any pay, unlike other staff. They were even denied unemployment benefits. So Avolio went to then superintendent Ed Fuhrman and asked for help. The workers did not get back pay, but Fuhrman went to the Board of Education, Avolio recalls, and got the trustees to agree to cover four “emergency” days in the future.

The following year Avolio went back and talked to Fuhrman again, this time about the fact that the workers had no sick days. Again, she won a small concession from the district, which agreed to two paid sick days.

By then, Avolio knew what she had to do. “I knew we would get nowhere without a union,” she says. So she went to the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and got their endorsement to organize a collective bargaining unit for the school workers.

At the beginning, Avolio says, the Board was “very receptive” and the ACU got recognition from the district in 2015. “I knew nothing about negotiations” at that time, Avolio says. “Was it the greatest contract? No, but we were grateful to be recognized.”

In 2018, the union was able to negotiate a slightly better deal. “We had job security, and we had a voice,” she says. But the district would not budge on some key issues, including unemployment and health insurance. “They would not entertain it.”

The union also gave up the right to strike in its contracts, a concession Avolio now says she regrets. “But we have the right to free speech,” she says, referring to a recent incident when an attorney for the district threatened her for suggesting to her colleagues that they might look for other jobs if they could not get a better deal in the next contract.

But Avolio says that union members had every reason to think that they might get a better deal this time around. Last February, during a training session, superintendent Stephen Walker came to speak to the group at Avolio’s request. Avolio says Walker mentioned the fact that she had asked the district three times for help because some school workers were financially desperate.

“He told every one of us to our faces that we would get a better deal than we have now.”

Avolio says that district officials don’t realize that it is no longer the 1950s, and that these jobs are no longer “an extra job for Mom.” She adds, “after 18 years on the job, this is my career,” and says that this is the case for nearly all of her colleagues.

And Avolio insists that when she tells her colleagues they might need to look for other jobs, she is not joking or making light of a difficult situation. “A lot of the women are in their late 50s and 60s, working two jobs. It’s very serious. Many of them are concerned. Who is going to hire us?”

Yet Avolio is very encouraged at the outpouring of support for the school workers among many Croton parents. There have been letters to The Gazette in support of the ACU’s position, emails and letters to the Board of Education, and major shows of support at Board meetings.

“Never count out the underdog,” Avolio says.

What is life like for teacher’s aides and lunch workers? They tell us in their own words.

A kindergarten teacher’s aide (excerpted and abridged)

— “Supervise students during breakfast in the multipurpose room each morning.”

— “Clean tables and sweep floors after the children have finished having breakfast…”

— “Each morning go through all the students’ Daily Take Home folders—organize paperwork, check for notes from home.”

— “Assist students in the morning with unfinished work from prior day.”

— “Make photocopies of work lessons for the classroom teacher, order supplies as needed.”

— “Help in providing instructional assistance to individuals and small groups in reviewing and reinforcing previously introduced skills by the teacher.”

— “Assist teacher in maintaining classroom discipline, managing behavior and monitoring classroom.”

— “Daily accompanying of students at recess and monitoring/supervising of childrens’ behavior during recess and lunchtime.”

— “Accompany students on field trips.”

— “Provide one-on-one attention and support to students who require additional assistance.”

— “Accompany students to Nurse when they are not feeling well, had a bathroom accident or are injured.”

— “Trained in child restraint by a behavior consultant.”

A lunch monitor at the elementary school (excerpted and abridged.)

“My schedule is 10:30 to 1:30 pm. During those three hours I have to watch over kindergarten classes plus 1st [to] 4th grade classes. Each grade has over 120 students… During recess, I have to make sure students are safe when they are using play equipment…solve students’ behavior problems and report to administration [and] teachers… Sometimes I have to stand for long periods of time and endure extreme temperatures (very high and very low…)”

A teacher’s aide describes their day (excerpted and abridged)

“A day in the life of an aide is always unpredictable. We are met with challenging obstacles consistently… An Aide’s job is to be with the child all day minus the 30-45 minute break they are given which is normally split into smaller [periods] due to the support they need to give the student… Aides allow for classroom management to run smoothly while helping the lead teacher continue to teach other students with minimal to no disturbances… We all know that every child has the right to learn and every child has the right to have a learning environment that adapts to that individual child’s needs. An Aide gives that child… the support and assistance for that right to be met.”

Teacher’s aides play a crucial role taking care of special needs students.

“My main job is a one on one with an autistic child… My job is to control, neutralize… and energize to motivate him to do his work each day…”

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