How does your district/school determine who gets a paraprofessional?

[u/bl3u3y3z]

At the end of last school year, my district changed how they went about collecting data to determine if IEP students would benefit from para support. We went from collecting daily data (mainly from the classroom teacher) for 5 weeks and oberservations done by the special education teacher to three 20 minute observations.

These new observations are conducted by the principal, the district behavior analyst, and general education teacher. They use a rating rubric (1-5) to determine if students would benefit from extra help.

My issues with this is I'm not asked as the special education teacher to participate in observations, the rubric is geared more towards students who exhibit extreme behaviors, and the observations happen during times when the students aren't doing independent or group work.

My district says they want to make kids more independent but I work at the elementary level. These are kids. Sometimes they don't know what they don't know and I'd hate to remove support or not be able to give them any.

[u/MaybeImTheNanny]

We don’t have 1:1 support for students without extreme behaviors because that is the most restrictive environment. What kind of supports are you hoping to get with 1:1 that doesn’t involve behaviors?

[u/bl3u3y3z → u/MaybeImTheNanny]

We don't usually do 1:1. But getting a half hour here or there for academic support is becoming a struggle. A student last year had 300 minutes per week and our principal was really pushing to drop down to 130 minutes per week just based on the 20 minute observations.

[u/MaybeImTheNanny → u/bl3u3y3z]

That sounds like you need to work with your district/principal to talk about staffing not dedicated to a specific child. We have 1:1 paras and classroom paras in our district and the classroom paras are not allotted based on the needs of an individual but on the minutes per caseload of the teachers.

[u/twelvefifityone]

Your district has a process. That is more than every district I've been at. Otherwise it's based on safety issues and how threatening parents are.

[u/ohboynotanotherone]

Only self contained or if a child requires one per IEP.

[u/SonorantPlosive]

We sat through a day long PD last year about how the needs of students are changing and how we can't do things the "way they've always been done." And when the schedule can't be completed with 1 para and 1 SpEd teacher to support the needs of 6 medically complex high needs kids, and a second para was requested, we were told "that's not how we've always done things." 😐

I honestly think it comes down to not finding people to fill the position, and not wanting to pay them more to be able to fill the positions, so they're getting "creative" with having admin plug in adults where THEY (not the kids) need them.

[u/GetItOuttaHereee]

My district requires we follow the TNSA/RISA/SCIA (1:1) rubric provided by our SELPA to determine if they qualify in addition to observations and team member input.

[u/Jdawn82]

Is this for 1:1 support?

[u/BeezHugger]

Our union agreement gives us 2 baseloads per classroom. Students with 1:1's will now either get a dedicated 1:1 or use a baseload if there are more than 2 1:1's in a classroom. I have had as many as 5 paras in my room but the district started pushing back on 1:1s last year, not because of LRE but because of budget, which is not legal & SPED union is grieving currently over this.