On my first day as a special education teacher, I had five paraeducators, a room and a lanyard. I’d taken the classes, done some student teaching and arrived with an intern credential. Managing adults was a different story, and I had none of those skills yet.
Honest confession: the first paraeducator team I ever led ran me. They had loved the teacher before me and were set in their ways, so I went with the flow a little too much. My heart was in the right place, but the skills weren’t there yet, and within a few months, I was the one being managed. I learned from it, and the teams that followed were better for it. But the lesson would be harder to learn today.
The paraeducator job has changed. A paraeducator used to belong to a special day class, one teacher and one room, with the teacher right there all day. Inclusion moved many of them into general education, where they might follow a student through several classrooms and several teachers, make calls on their own and deliver minutes that sit on an IEP.
It looks different in a kindergarten room than it does in a middle school, but the shift is the same. The tools districts use to schedule and track them haven’t caught up, and states are starting to look more closely at what actually gets delivered. Texas will fund by level of service starting next year. The tracking is the district’s problem to solve. Training, building and fostering the paraeducator team is yours and here’s what worked for me.
Start with community
People stay where they feel they belong. Eat lunch with them, ask about their weekend and let the room be a little fun. Positivity is contagious, and it feeds learning. Toxicity is contagious, too. The ones who stay get to know your students, and that makes them better at the work. They are educators, and the next step is treating them like it.
Treat them as professionals
Ask their opinion when you prep an IEP, put their names on the data they collect and say thank you where other adults can hear it. California checks a sample of IEPs every year for minutes delivered against minutes written, and a one-on-one aide’s time is part of that. Paraeducators don’t write the IEP, and they aren’t accountable for those minutes. You are. But good, dated data samples from the person who was in the room are what back up your data, and a paraeducator does a better job of that when treated as the professional educator they are.
Set expectations early and keep them short
In the first two weeks, put it in writing: what the day looks like, how data gets recorded, what to do when a student escalates and who to go to. Then stop! A long list of rules on day one reads as distrust, while a short list you actually hold to reads as leadership.
Model before you correct
If you want a paraeducator to run a structured center, run it first while they watch. Some will pick it up from watching, while others need you to teach it directly. The sooner you figure out who is who, the less you’ll be fixing in March.
Do everything you ask of them
With that first team, I said yes to every swap and let a lot slide that I shouldn’t have, because I wanted them to like me. The mistake wasn’t being flexible. It was being flexible before I’d earned the right to be.
The next team I started differently. From the first week, I ran toileting, took the hardest student at recess, filled in data sheets and stacked chairs. I planned lessons that the adults wanted to be in the room for. The respect was real because it was earned in the same work.
Then, and only then, be flexible!
Matching paraeducators with students is closer to an art than a spreadsheet. You’re weighing personalities, physical limits and the parents who ask for a particular aide by name. I’ve had paraeducators who could de-escalate a student in 30 seconds and paraeducators who could escalate one in 10. Know which is which before the schedule gets built, whether you build it or an administrator does, and know who is wearing down before they tell you. Give a paraeducator a break before they ask for one.
Every one of those moves changes who is delivering a service, and flexibility only works on top of the organization. Whoever builds the schedule, a teacher, a site administrator or the special education coordinator, you should be able to look at it and know which student a paraeducator is with right now and what service that time is delivering.
Most central offices have a serial number for every Chromebook, but for paraeducators, they have a payroll list and an administrator’s word that the minutes were delivered. California just added $2.4 billion to special education, a 43% increase, with aides and one-on-one support named as the reason. That’s good news, and it comes with a fair question about what the money is buying. A paraeducator schedule that shows student, service and minutes is what a real answer looks like.
Until the systems catch up
Until districts build systems that match how paraeducators actually work, the teacher and the administrator who schedules them are the system. Your paraeducators will feel the difference, and so will your students.