Special Education Classroom Assist

Across all employers in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN area, the median wage for Teaching Assistants, Except Postsecondary — about 46,770 people — is $37,840. James Shields Middle School pays a median base salary of $52,091 for this role, 38% above that figure — above the 90th percentile of local pay for the occupation.

Median total compensation for this role at James Shields Middle School is $73,321, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.

Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.

Special Education Classroom Assist is held in 514 Chicago Public Schools departments. In James Shields Middle School, the median of $73,321 ranks #114 of 514.