Nobody has told me anything about my student

The situation

I started as a 1:1 para two weeks ago. On my first morning someone handed me a schedule, walked me to a classroom, and introduced me to my student, and that was the whole orientation. I have never seen his IEP. I don't know whether he has a behavior plan. The teacher is kind but has about ninety seconds a day for me, and I'm starting to feel stupid for still having so many questions. Am I even allowed to read his IEP? I keep feeling like I was supposed to walk in already knowing how to do this job.

This letter is a composite: it is assembled from situations paraeducators have described publicly and in conversation, with details changed throughout. No single person's situation appears here.

The answer

You were not supposed to walk in already knowing how to do this job. Nobody is. What you are describing, the schedule with no context, the student with no file, the teacher with no time, is the most common first month in this profession, and the failure it reveals belongs to the system, not to you. Schools depend on paraeducators without duly preparing them; the gap you find yourself in was there before you arrived.

Let's start with your direct question, because the answer changes your week: yes, you may read the IEP, and you should. The library's first-week brief states the law's answer: "As a school official with legitimate educational interest, you have access to records you need to do your job." Reading the IEP and the behavior plan of a student you support is not a favor a teacher grants you; it is part of doing the job correctly, and federal privacy law already accounts for it. The brief on reading an IEP walks through the document section by section, in plain language, so that the first read takes minutes rather than an afternoon. Better still, make it a shared read: "For each student I'm with this week, can we look at the goals and the accommodations together?" is a request a supervising teacher can say yes to in the time they actually have.

Now the feeling of being stupid for asking, because that feeling will cost you more than any missing document if you buy into it. The questions are not the evidence against you; in your first weeks they are most of the job. The first-week brief is direct about this as well: excellent teachers almost universally appreciate paras who ask, and the ones who seem frustrated are usually frustrated by the structural lack of time, not by your questions. So do not ration your questions; structure them instead. Ask for a written schedule, even one line per period. Ask for five minutes at the end of the day. Ask for a standing twenty minutes at the end of each week, and bring your list of unknown acronyms and half-understood processes to it. If the teacher genuinely cannot or will not make that time, that situation has its own brief, and it is more common than anyone in my position should be comfortable admitting.

While you learn, hold one boundary, for your own protection and your student's: do not run a procedure you have not been trained on, and trained means modeled and observed, not just described. And if you cannot find an IEP or a behavior plan for a student you support, that is not an administrative wrinkle; it is something to raise with the people who hold authority in your building. The first-week brief offers the exact sentence: "I don't know if this is something — but I want to flag it" is a perfectly fine sentence.

One more move, and it may matter more than the rest: find the para in your building who has been there longest and ask whether you can bring them questions. Experienced paras are an essential resource, and this profession teaches itself that way far more than those of us in administration tend to value. If they say no, ask the next person, or ask the colleagues you know better who they would ask.

You asked whether you were supposed to already know this job. You were supposed to be taught it. Until your system does that properly, insist on the pieces of the work that are yours to request: the documents, the modeling, the five minutes. If we are serious about serving students, then preparing the people who sit closest to them is not a courtesy; it is a duty.

Words you can use this week

1. "For each student I'm with this week, can we look at the goals and the accommodations together?"
2. "Can you write down where I should be each period today?"
3. "Can we talk for five minutes about how today went?"
4. "I don't know if this is something — but I want to flag it."

From the library

• My First Week — a day-by-day orientation for the new paraeducator.
• Reading an IEP — what each section means and what to look for first.
• Supervising Teacher Won't Communicate — when the five minutes never comes.

Have a situation of your own? Ask a question on Peerlore. It is private by default, and the answer comes from the library, immediately.