Editor, Townsman:

Recently, Andover leaders petitioned the state to change the threshold for providing health benefits for part-time employees from 20 to 30 hours. If approved, this would have serious consequences for some of the town's hardest working part-time employees, instructional assistants.

There are three types of assistants in most of our schools. PDD assistants work with students with the greatest needs, special education assistants work in classrooms or resource rooms with children on IEPs and regular ed assistants work in classrooms but may be called to fill in anywhere. Most assistants have bachelor's degrees and some have master's degrees. Many assistants are not participants in the town health plan and many are Andover taxpayers. Some are single women working two or three jobs to support themselves. To take away their health benefit would be catastrophic.

Under the present contract, a Step 1 assistant working full time makes $17,901 and after nine years of service a full time assistant makes $28,706. There are almost no full time assistants at any step level. Each year, depending on the school budget, principals are allocated a certain number of assistant hours. Some assistant hours are set by the mandates of special education and can't be changed. The rest of the time is allocated to serve the greatest number of children. This means bringing in as many people as possible. Some of our assistants are willing to work as few as 10 hours a week to provide a service to a student in need. Why do they do this? No one does this job unless they love children and understand the importance of every child in Andover getting the best education possible. It was suggested at a recent assistants' meeting that members of the town committees come into the schools and do our job for a day. As an assistant at West Elementary, I feel anyone can do my job for a day. Think about doing it six hours a day for 180 days. I suggest instead, that you invite 27 10-year-old boys and girls to your home every day for a week. You must keep them safe, orderly and manage to teach them math, language arts, social studies, science, music and art. They will have to be supervised at meals and they should have 35 minutes of recess. You must make sure that they are playing safely, are including everyone and that no child is being bullied. Your significant other can help. You'll need it. At the end of the day, you must be sure that they all go home with the proper adult or get on their assigned bus.

Assistants work with teachers to see that all of this gets accomplished. We teach small groups of children who are falling behind or work with small groups or a class on a special project. We may be one on one with a child who has a special problem. We are in every way assistant teachers.

Our special needs teachers and assistants have saved the town of Andover millions of dollars by keeping students in our schools rather than having to send them out of district. This often comes at a high price to them personally. Teachers and assistants have been bitten, hit, spit on, and had noses broken. They change soiled and wet diapers and clothes.

Most assistants would prefer to work full time. If assistant positions became full time, with the money available for assistant hours, most children would no longer have access to extra help. We all go above and beyond what is required of us yet at Town Meeting it was heartbreaking to see other town employees, who did not suffer personnel cuts and have children in our schools, vote to cut the school budget. People and companies contemplating moving into town will always first ask, "How are the schools?" I cannot understand the animosity that borders on contempt toward the school department and its employees. Your children are entrusted into our care at one of the most important times of their lives, yet we are constantly maligned at Town Meeting and in the press. We are not wasteful, overpaid and don't get paid for sick days not taken when we retire. School employees and administrators work harder than anyone I've seen.

Andover should be proud and grateful that there are so many wonderful people working to educate your children in spite of so many setbacks.

Elaine A. Pineault

209 Lowell St.