Olivia Goldberg / The Citizen

At the heart of a purported conflict between the Auburn Teachers Association and the Auburn Enlarged City School District lies a case and the question of who is qualified to perform social work services in public schools.

This past spring, the ATA approached school district officials with concerns about a three-year federal grant the district had secured via Partnership for Results, a non-profit, quasi-governmental agency. The money from the $1.2 million grant -- authorized last fall and designed for alottment in $400,000 increments -- has gone toward hiring, so far, three full-time and one half-time mental health professionals.

Employed by Partnership for Results, the counselors provide year-round counseling and outreach services to elementary school students and their families -- services, schools superintendent John Plume said, were previously missing at the elementary school level that conflict to counseling aid currently provided to middle and high school students.

Yet ATA president Sally Jo Widmer reasoned the counselors in question lack certification requirements previously set forth by the New York State Education Department and ratified most recently last March by its commissioner, Richard Mills. Also, Widmer said, the kind of work in which the counselors have engaged fall within the group's bargaining unit -- constituting positions that current school district employees might otherwise hold.

Read the full report in Saturday's edition of The Citizen.