Library

Pathways into the Role

You're considering becoming a paraprofessional, or you just got hired and want to know what to expect before y…

A Day in the Life

You're trying to picture what paraprofessional work actually looks like, hour by hour, in your kind of setting…

State Certification Requirements

You want to know what your state actually requires for paraprofessional credentialing, beyond the federal ESSA…

Identity and the Role

Your identity (race, language, disability, class, sexuality, parenting status) shapes how you experience the w…

IDEA Overview for Paras

You work under IDEA every day, and you need a clear sense of the law's promises, your role within them, and wh…

ESSA and Title I Para Qualifications

You work in a Title I school, and federal law specifies what qualifications you must hold and what you can / c…

Section 504 Overview

You support a student with a 504 plan, and 504 is *not* a smaller IEP; it's a different law with different pro…

ADA in Schools

You support students who need physical, communication, or program access, and the ADA reaches further than IDE…

CEC Specialty Set in Practice

You want a real professional framework for paraprofessional growth, instead of training on the immediate tasks…

Coaching and Calibration

You're a supervisor giving coaching feedback to paras, or a para wanting more from coaching than 'You're doing…

Para Teacher Communication Norms

Communication with your supervising teacher (or your para) feels inconsistent, and you suspect the actual prob…

Performance Evaluation

You're preparing for your annual evaluation, and you want it to actually drive your growth, not just be a form…

Instructional Roles of the Para

You do instructional work all day, and you need a clear line between supporting and teaching, with the skill c…

Prompting Hierarchies

Prompting is most of what you do, and the difference between skilled and well-intentioned prompting determines…

Prompt Fading

You prompt students through skills they can't yet do alone, and fading those prompts is where actual independe…

Programming Sheets and Procedural Fidelity

You run programs that another adult also runs, and consistency between you is the difference between the progr…

Function-Based Thinking

You're trying to figure out why a student behaves the way they do, and why the answer matters more than the be…

Functional Behavior Assessment

An FBA is happening for your student, and you're going to be a major source of the data the team needs.

Reading and Running a BIP

You're being asked to run a Behavior Intervention Plan, and you need to read it the way it's meant to be read.

Antecedent Strategies

You want to spend less time managing crises: by changing what happens *before* the behavior, not what happens…

Data Types Overview

You take data on student goals, and you want to know which type (frequency, duration, latency, intensity, prom…

Interval Recording

You're tracking behavior that's hard to count (engagement, vocal stim, on-task), and you want to know whether…

Prompt Level Data

You're teaching a skill, and you want to track honestly how much help the student actually needed, so the team…

ABC Narrative Recording

A behavior is puzzling and the team doesn't yet understand it, and you're capturing antecedent-behavior-conseq…

Autism

You support an autistic student, and you need a frame that holds the heterogeneity ("if you've met one autisti…

ADHD

You support a student with ADHD, and most of what's hard for them at school is executive function, not motivat…

Specific Learning Disabilities

You support a student with a specific learning disability (SLD), the umbrella covers dyslexia, dysgraphia, dys…

Dyslexia

You support a student with dyslexia, and the right kind of reading instruction (Structured Literacy) makes the…

ELL Paraprofessional Brief

You support a multilingual student: bilingual para, ESL para, Title I para, or SpEd para with an English Learn…

Title I and Title III Paras

Your para position is funded by Title I or Title III: and you want to know what that means for your qualificat…

Newcomer Support

A new student has just arrived in the U.S.: first day, first week, first six weeks of supporting them in your…

SLIFE Support

Your student has had little or interrupted formal schooling, they may be 14 or 16 with minimal literacy in any…

Communication Bill of Rights

You support a student with complex communication needs, non-speaking, minimally speaking, or using AAC (augmen…

AAC Overview

Your student uses or is being evaluated for AAC (augmentative and alternative communication), and you want a w…

PECS and Picture Exchange

Your student is on PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System), and you want to be sure you're implementing t…

Assistive Technology Overview

Your student uses assistive technology (AT), pencil grip to speech-generating device, and you want to support…

Early Intervention

You work in early intervention (birth-3), and the framework, philosophy, and your role are fundamentally diffe…

Early Childhood PreK

You work in preschool / pre-K, and resist the urge to make it look like elementary school.

Elementary

You work in K-5 special education, and you need to balance being present enough to support with fading enough…

Routines and Transitions

You support students whose hardest moments are transitions, between activities, locations, adults, and most be…

Working with the Supervising Teacher

You're building the working partnership with your supervising teacher, or you can feel that partnership drifti…

Working with the Gen Ed Teacher

You're an inclusion para in someone else's classroom, pushing into gen-ed for part of the day or full-time.

Cafeteria Recess Bus Staff

Your student goes to lunch, recess, and the bus, and the adults in those settings are not the people who know…

Working with Families

You interact with families at drop-off, pickup, on the phone, or in meetings, and you want to be a partner wit…

FERPA and Confidentiality

You know things about students that other staff and outsiders don't, and you're navigating the daily risk of a…

Mandated Reporting

You have reasonable suspicion of child abuse or neglect, or you just received a disclosure and you're deciding…

Dual Relationships and Social Media

Your student is also your neighbor, your colleague is also your church friend, or a student just sent you a so…

Gifts and Boundaries

A family or colleague gave you a gift, and you're trying to figure out whether to accept it, decline it, or es…

Setting Boundaries

You give until there's nothing left, and you want to figure out where the line should be with students, famili…

PD Planning and Documentation

You want professional development that's directed, building toward identifiable competencies, instead of a pil…

Para to Teacher Pathways

You're considering becoming a teacher, and you want a realistic map of routes, costs, time, and trade-offs bef…

Reflective Practice

You want professional growth that compounds, not twenty years of unreflected practice that produces a para who…

My First Week

You're starting as a paraprofessional this week: students you don't know, schedules you don't follow, language…

My Student Just Arrived From Another Country

A new student just arrived from another country: limited English, possibly limited records, possibly previous…

When the Para Is Out

You're going to be out, planned or unplanned, and you want sub coverage that actually maintains your students'…

Supervising Teacher Wont Communicate

Your supervising teacher won't engage: no day-one orientation, no written task assignments, no check-ins, no f…