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Title : The Role of Paraeducators
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The Role of Paraeducators
Important story in today's Seattle Times,‘Basically I’m their teacher’: Washington has big plans for its 25,500 school paraeducators
More commonly known as teacher’s aides or classroom assistants, paraeducators earn about half the salary of the average teacher in the Evergreen State. And yet, more and more, schools here and across Washington are relying on these workers to help mitigate a chronic teacher shortage.
It’s for that reason the state has eyed paraeducators as potential teacher recruits. Developing that pipeline would not only help stanch a growing number of classroom vacancies — it also would improve diversity, alleviating the problem of a mostly white teaching force that doesn’t look like its students.The article points out that there are 25,500 paraeducators in Washington state as compared to 66,000 fully certified teachers.
New for Washington state:
As of the 2017-18 school year, paraeducators like Cortez provided nearly two-thirds of the instructional time in special-education classrooms. The same is true for programs that serve English learners and children from low-income households, according to the Public School Employees of Washington, a statewide union that represents paraeducators.
That’s largely the case in schools across the country: Paraeducators typically receive less training directly related to instruction, and yet they often work with the students with the highest needs. But Washington stands alone in its recognition of that mismatch, and for the first time this fall, every school district must offer a new training course that all instructional paraeducators must complete.
By the start of the next school year, all 295 school districts in Washington must provide similar training for their instructional paraeducators.And boom! That's our Legislature who believes that districts have spare money to fulfill all the legislature's mandates. It's nuts to do this to districts but I believe it's one way that the Legislature tries to force districts to spend the dollars they are given in better, more strategic ways.
An added wrinkle: In 2017, state lawmakers pledged to fully fund a mandatory, four-day training course for all paraeducators. But budget negotiations during this year’s legislative session provided only enough money to pay for half.
More diversity in teaching corps?
As for a separate challenge, Washington officials see a solution: turning paraeducators into teachers to bridge a vexing cultural divide between the state’s largely white teachers and their increasingly diverse students. It makes sense: Paraeducators often grew up in the same neighborhood as their students.I note that the chart in the articles shows that in Washington state 11% of teachers are POC while 21% of paraeducators are POC. While that's good, you'd wish the numbers would be higher, given how many districts have large minority populations of students.
To recruit people like him into teacher roles, the state has approved nearly two dozen “grow-your-own” programs in which school districts and colleges help working paraeducators get their teaching licenses. And as of last year, paraeducators can apply for up to $4,000 in conditional loans to cover tuition and other college costs — if they agree to teach for at least two years in Washington.
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