Paraprofessional Tips for Teachers Working With Paraeducators

Paraprofessional Tips: It’s all about the relationship!

The relationship between a teacher and paraprofessional is just that: a relationship, with two people, two sets of opinions, and often times, two teaching philosophies.

And just like paraprofessionals sometimes need help dealing with their classroom teacher, often times teachers need help learning to work with their paraprofessional.

The following paraprofessional tips help teachers work well with the paraprofessionals in their classroom:

• Consider the paraprofessional an essential member of your teaching team.  Whenever possible, include the paraprofessional in planning, team meetings, troubleshooting, and any other decision where you feel input from the paraprofessional would be valuable.
• Empower the paraprofessional to monitor behavior and support the discipline process in the classroom.
• Discuss your goals, priorities, and plans with the paraprofessional on a daily basis.  Communication is critical, not only to the success of the students in the classroom, but also to the teaching relationship.
• Provide the paraprofessional with lesson plans, activities, or “to-do” items as soon as possible.
• Discuss issues with your paraprofessional, especially when the issue is related to the student he or she is working with.
• Avoid interruption when the paraeducator is working with with a student or several students.  Interruption undermines the paraprofessional’s authority with the students, and often causes distress and possible conflict.
• Compile a loose-leaf binder for the paraprofessional that contains class rules, expectations, a syllabus, etc.
• Model/teach how to respond to specific behavior.

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