Pay Paraprofessionals and Support Staff Act

The Pay Paraprofessionals and Support Staff Act would create a federal program aimed at guaranteeing a living wage for paraprofessionals and education support staff in U.S. K-12 schools. The bill would subject states to minimum wage and minimum salary requirements for all full-time and part-time local educational agency (LEA) staff serving students, with these wage levels set and periodically adjusted based on inflation. It does this by authorizing substantial federal funding to states, which would in turn provide subgrants to LEAs to raise pay and support staff through salaries, wages, and professional development. The Secretary of Education would administer the program, monitor compliance, and ensure funds are used to meet the wage standards rather than supplant state or local funding. Key design features include explicit wage thresholds (a target minimum salary for full-time paraprofessionals and a target minimum wage for part-time staff), an inflation-based escalation mechanism, timelines for states to reach the targets, and a framework of subgrants and monitoring to implement the requirements across districts and schools. The bill also preserves existing collective bargaining rights but requires wage compliance, and it prohibits using federal funds to replace (supplant) state or local funding for education.