Dear Sir,
We know that you have printed letters on the situation regarding Teaching Assistants in Co. Durham, but we wanted to add our opinions on this matter. It has now escalated to a dismiss and re-engage situation, because Teaching Assistants will not accept DCC’s ridiculous proposals that will see us lose over two thousand pounds a year.
The common myth is that TA’s get, and are paid for, the whole of the school holidays. We do not! We get the same statutory paid holidays as everyone else, the only difference being, our salary gets split equally over 12 months.
This is on our contracts, and has been confirmed in e-mails from DCC more recently.  Contracts also state 32.5 hours per week and not the 37 hours that they claim they have been paying us. Proposals were to increase hours to the said 37, but also decrease salary to reflect only term time wage. In effect we are penalised twice for a mistake made by DCC many years ago.
Because we refused to accept these changes, councillors voted for DCC’s dismiss and re-engagement plans. In County Durham we have 126 councillors and some were exempt due to personal reasons, others chose not to attend and so abstained from the vote, which left 79 out 126 councillors at the meeting.
Of these, 57 voted for DCC, 18 for TA’s and a further 4 abstained on the day. This means 51 of our councillors didn’t even vote! Not what we would call a resounding majority as nearly as many stayed away/abstained than actually voted!
One who voted FOR DCC’s proposal was none other than our new Mayor! Jed Hillary. I wonder how many of the residents of Newton Aycliffe know that he has such a low opinion of highly skilled and qualified support staff in school who enable children to access the whole curriculum, as supposedly ‘Every Child Matters’! We think this is outrageous!
These support staff along with their partners, husbands, wives etc., will be the people who remember this when they vote in upcoming elections.
Name & address supplied