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A paraeducator? Extra help for students? You bet! But, working effectively with paraeducators requires first and foremost the recognition that the presence of a paraeducator at once promises help and signals a dramatic shift in your role and responsibilities as a special education teacher.

Some teachers welcome this shift. The recognition that students who need special education services and adaptations to general education curriculum would not survive without additional assistance is so powerful that they accept this role change. Many teachers also recognize that they, working alone, cannot imaginably provide all the supports to each of the general education teachers who also teach their students. These teachers regard the work that paraeducators do as necessary to their success as a teacher and to the safety, health, and academic success of their students.

Today's teachers also know that the assistance they receive from paraeducators comes with a price. It means that they lose some of the personalized one-to-one contact with students. Sometimes, this loss of contact also means sacrificing some control. One teacher talked about the paraeducator in her classroom: "Sometimes she does more individual instruction with the kids than I do. She is the teacher when I'm not there."

The Continuum of Approaches for School Professionals is a model that illustrates the decrease in control that teachers and service providers may experience as they move away from an educational model that emphasizes individualism and individual teachers in classrooms. The shift toward the right side of the horizontal axis represents the increases of potential influence a teacher has on students' education through collaborative and consultative work. Supervising and directing the work of paraeducators represents a maximum increase of influence on large numbers of students' educational experiences, but a loss of control over the specific daily events.

The role of teachers and other service providers in schools becomes more like that of a middle-level executive, an engineer, or a doctor or lawyer, who consults with colleagues, diagnoses and plans, and then directs the work of paraprofessionals in order to meet the needs of the client or patient. In this case, the professionals plan curriculum, instruction, and appropriate adaptations and direct the paraeducator in helping to carry out the plans.

On the bright side, this role change signifies a shift to a more professional status for teachers. The question of whether teaching is really a profession and how teacher qualities compare to the qualities of other professionals has been discussed for years. Most agree that a profession is formed when members of an occupation have a knowledge base (as in engineering and medicine) and use that knowledge base to guide practice. There is also much agreement that, in professions, being prepared is essential to professional ethics and that unprepared people should not be permitted to practice. There is agreement that professional status is given to an occupation when there is a high degree of uncertainty in everyday practice that requires judgment.

Judgment is the primary factor that distinguishes between professionals and others in the same field who are not professionals. Professional judgment is required for all of the teachers' functions that cannot be delegated to others and for which the teacher assumes final and full responsibility, even when some of the tasks that lead to completion of the professional responsibilities are assigned to others (e.g. paraeducators, volunteers, peer assistants, student assistants). School professionals, thus, are leaders or 'executives' who make sure that the work they plan gets done at the right time, in the right way, and in the right amount.

Think of your school as a workplace, composed of many workgroups (e.g. grade level teams, subject area teams). Each workgroup is composed of people who hold different kinds of roles, have different types and levels of responsibility, and who come with different kinds of academic preparation. Schools, as workplaces, produce students who are well educated through a wide range of experiences and interactions with various members of the workgroup. Often, school workgroups (teams) have a single person as a designated leader. Sometimes the leadership of the workgroup is shared among multiple members. Whether in teaching or business, the person (or persons) who run(s) the team must perform a number of executive functions. Teachers who serve in team leadership or executive roles must ensure completion of and remain accountable for their five primary responsibilities. The first four are (1) planning curriculum and instruction for students, (2) assessing students both for program eligibility and for ongoing progress monitoring, (3) teaching or causing instruction to happen, and (4) collaboration with other professionals and families. The fifth responsibility, supervision of paraeducators, is characterized by seven additional functions.

The seven keys to success as a school professional who supervises paraeducators are the same kinds of executive functions performed by team leaders in business. In businesses, team leaders or executives perform seven vital executive functions to keep the team working.

1. Team leaders orient new paraeducators to the program, creating personalized job descriptions for each paraeducator.
2. They set a schedule so all members know where they need to be, and when the work needs to be done.
3. They provide plans and direction for the work that needs to be done.
4. They delegate the right kinds of tasks to people who are best able to handle them.
5. Executives make sure that their workgroup members have the right training to do the job, and help them get more training for new skills or they provide additional job-specific training themselves.
6. They monitor the performance of group members to assure that the work gets done in the right way and they give feedback and coaching to the team members to help them do their work well.
7. Finally, a team leader or executive makes sure that the workplace functions smoothly by creating communication pathways and systems, implementing problem-solving sequences, and either mediating conflicts or assisting with conflict management approaches among team members.

As with any teaching technique, the seven paraeducator supervision functions rely on the skill of the teacher to have the desired effect. However, before a teacher can even think about effectively supervising paraeducators through the seven executive functions, she needs to conquer a few situational 'demons' or barriers that plague every teacher. You may want to reflect on these typical problems or demons to assess your own situation and to improve on your ability to manage them.

Barrier 1a: Where do I find the time?

The lack of time is a major problem in the work lives of all school professionals. At every opportunity, teachers report that the demands of large classes and caseloads, combined with schedules that permit little planning time during the school day, are a source of great stress for them. Unfortunately, the solution to this problem is apparent but not affordable. The financial means of schools do not currently support smaller classes and caseloads, more teachers, more planning hours, or fewer class responsibilities. So, teachers must make adjustments in their use of time to maximize their effectiveness without burning out. The fact is that it takes time to supervise and direct the work of paraeducators. Yet, paraeducators can perform many tasks during the school day to support students while freeing teachers' time to think, plan, assess students, collaborate with one another, and direct, monitor, and coach the paraeducator.

Barrier 1b: When do I do supervision? Can I do it during the school day?

One important aspect to consider is when the supervisory responsibilities are performed. Teachers who are good at paraeducator supervision report that they have to spend some time outside the student-contact day to plan the schedule and to design appropriate learning activities for the paraeducator to use with students.

However, they schedule time during the paraeducator's work day to meet for on-the-job training, coaching, and feedback. In return for the investment of time outside of the students' school day and the time taken from student contact hours, the presence of a paraeducator doubles the amount of instructional time available during school hours.

Teachers who fail to spend the outside time to plan and fail to do training, coaching, and feedback during the day with paraeducators report that they are dissatisfied with the performance of the paraeducators with whom they work.

Solution 1a and 1b: Time Management

Barrier 2: How can I do one more thing when my plate is already full?

It is particularly difficult to limit what we take on because our students need and deserve so much. Teachers find themselves having to take on more tasks and tend to be unsure of which tasks a paraeducator could legitimately do for them. However, continually taking on more work without letting anything go is a major contributor to special education teacher burnout.

Solution 2: Work Smarter - Not Harder!

Barrier 3: What if I don't know what to do or how to do it?

Teachers admit that they know little about the legal, liability and ethical considerations when it comes to working with paraeducators. They say they feel like they are working in the dark regarding the delineation of roles and responsibilities between professionals and paraeducators. They wonder about what's legal and what's not. Sometimes they worry about risk to students and to their own careers in this litigious society where liability suits prevail. Teachers also are concerned about ethical issues associated with the assignment of tasks to paraeducators - what is the right thing to do? What if these children being instructed by a paraeducator are being shortchanged?

Combined with the time crunch, it's easy to avoid doing anything about paraeducator supervision - at least until the first problem crops up. If you have found yourself procrastinating on supervising the paraeducator, your lack of self-confidence as a supervisor could be the reason. Procrastinate no more. One big piece of the solution is to know about what's legal, ethical, and low-risk.

Solution 3a: Knowing About Legal Considerations

Solution 3b: Knowing About Liability Considerations

Solution 3c: Knowing About Ethical Considerations

Barrier 4: What about my principal and special education director? I don't get much support on this issue.

Even though teachers are no longer solely responsible for the delivery of instruction, they remain wholly accountable for the outcomes of the instructional process. When paraeducators assist in instruction, teachers and related service providers must orient the paraeducators, plan for them, schedule their day, delegate tasks, monitor their work, train and coach them to perform their duties, and manage the work environment to ensure the quality of students' programs as well as their own professional integrity.

Unfortunately, school administrators have hundreds of other important concerns as well and too often ignore their role as support person for the special educator who is trying to supervise the paraeducator and perform all these executive functions.

Solution 4: Gaining Administrative Support

Summary

Employing paraeducators to provide instructional support to students changes the role of the classroom teacher or consulting teacher. While it increases the professional status of teachers, it requires substantial time to be spent on supervision. While supervisory responsibilities may be shared among professionals in a program, grade level, or building, additional time is required. Time is always a problem for teachers who have many simultaneous demands to fulfill, and it is one of three barriers to effective paraeducator supervision that must be considered. Another consideration is teacher knowledge of legislative, ethical and liability issues. Finally, administrative support for teachers who supervise paraeducators is paramount to their success.

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