The pervasive and chronic shortage of instructional assistants for special education is critical given that special education teachers in Oregon have identified adequate numbers of well prepared instructional assistants as the single most important factor in providing a supportive teaching and learning environment.
This Brief and those in coming months will explore issues and resources related to the retention of paraeducators.
This Strategy Brief highlights A Guide to Schoolwide Planning for Paraeducator Supports.
The University of Vermont developed this guide to assist educators to establish teams to plan support for paraeducators and to address paraeducator issues. This workbook contains worksheets covering the 10 planning steps listed below:
- inform the local school board of the intention to establish a team to address paraeducator issues;
- ensure that the team includes the appropriate members of the school and community;
- have the team assess their own status and fact-find in relation to the six paraeducator topics: acknowledging, orienting and training, hiring and assigning, interacting with others, roles and responsibilities, and supervising and evaluating;
- prioritize and select topics ands specific issues that reflect areas of need within the school that the team will work on first;
- update the local school board on the team's ranked priorities;
- design a plan to address the team's ranked priorities;
- identify local, regional, and statewide resources to assist in achieving team plans;
- implement the team's plans;
- evaluate the plan's impact and decide on next steps; and
- report impact and needs to the local school board.
A Guide to Schoolwide Planning for Paraeducator Supports is available full-text on the University of Vermont website.