One of the most critical parts of a special education classroom are the para-professionals that help us run them. They are de-escalators, teachers, relationship-builders and oftentimes the backbone that keeps our classrooms successful. For many special education teams, working together just comes naturally and fluidly. For some of us, we may be finding ourselves stuck in a rut finding it challenging to work together cohesively. So what’s the secret to a healthy paraprofessional and special education teacher relationship? How can we ensure the team is all on the same page and their voices are being heard to best serve our students? In this blog, Monique from The Teaching Corner on Instagram and I will be talking about the four necessities of a healthy paraprofessional relationship in the classroom!
1.) Delegating with paraprofessional strengths in mind: Too often, we may be finding ourselves delegating tasks to paraprofessionals that may not be the best fit for them. Just as we as special educators see our strengths and cater to them, we have to see that in our paraprofessionals as well. My classroom rule of thumb was ‘don’t give a para a job that you wouldn’t otherwise do yourself.’ When we find success and opportunities to feel good within our job setting, we are going to be motivated in that setting to give the best version of ourselves to our students. When a para is doing what they thrive in, work will most likely get done and get done well! As a teacher, doing it all yourself gets overwhelming and stressful. The overwhelm and stress is unnecessary if you delegate! Trust and delegating purposefully will take some stress off of your back while also allowing each team member (since everyone in the classroom makes up a team) to care for the classroom as a whole! You will be able to know your paras strengths by watching them in the classroom and taking a mindful note of how prompt and well they do certain duties. Also take note of what they’re proactive with because that can tell you that they like doing such a task! You will also be able to find out their strengths by building rapport which we will talk about in the fourth necessity! Moreover, delegate by disbursing the morning classroom set-up to the para that is always efficient with time and extremely organized, for instance!
2.) Communication: Communication is key in any sort of healthy relationship, but it’s even more crucial in the special education setting. We know how important our paras are in our classroom, so let’s ensure we give them an outlet to communicate their thoughts/ideas/input to us! When paras have input in the setting they are working in, they are going to feel more empowered and important knowing their ideas are valued and respected. They need to have ownership over classroom communities and practices. Paras are also seen as teachers in the classroom; students don’t know the difference most of the time. So, they need to be able to give feedback and not just get it as they see what happens in the classroom, too!
A way that you can encourage communication is by having a morning meeting one time a week. In these meetings you can give room for highs of the past week (if you chose Monday meetings), lows, suggestions, concerns and feedback. Make sure as the teacher, you still lead the meeting and steer it towards positivity. Remind each team member to bring solutions to their concerns and complaints should they have concerns and complaints. Furthermore, another way to encourage communication is with a fun activity like taking personality tests! This can be done at the beginning of the school year and during your first meeting. Some tests that are helpful are from truity.com, 16personalities.com and 123test.com. After taking the personality test from truity.com, each team member will find their strengths to be able to help the team. With 16personalities.com, each team member will find how they influence the classroom. Lastly, on 123test.com, the Jung personality test is a great one to take! It will measure how you deal with and relate to people. If this is an option you want to take, each test will provoke conversation and each person will see others in a different, and hopefully more respectful, light.
Furthermore, some questions that can be posed after each test (whether you all do just one or all three) are:
Do you and your paras feel the results accurately describe yourselves?
Were the results typical assumptions made about you?
Do you have personality types similar to the anomalies?
Are there countering profiles that can better support each other’s strengths and weaknesses?
3.) Encouragement: Have you ever received a “random act of kindness” or an affirmation that specifically acknowledges your work that you thought went unnoticed? Remember how you felt in those moments and now step into the others’ shoes. Encouragement goes a long way especially in the Special Education classroom. It can get chaotic during some points (or all points) of the day! The feeling of under-appreciation can stay silent within people. At times paraprofessionals keep their heads down, hold in the contribution they’ve made in the classroom because they feel as if their title isn’t as important as the teachers. Or since they are considered an aide or a helping hand, they feel their contribution without recognition is a give-in and shouldn’t be expected. Well, it doesn’t matter what our titles are. Everyone is valuable and should be valued. Everyone is a part of a team where all hands are needed on deck! Some ways you can encourage each other is by writing a thank you note, spontaneous verbal recognition or an intentional gift. Encouragement motivates people to do their best and to not become apathetic in their work ethic or give up!
4.) Building Rapport: Building rapport is not just for the teacher and student relationship but also for the teacher and paraprofessional relationship. Building rapport can also be described as building relationships. This is when you grow to know each other on a continual and daily basis. You consider talents, likes and background when working alongside each other. Building rapport is not short-term; it’s until the end of the school year. This is how you can build a healthy relationship! There is no room to have bitter conflict or feel misunderstood for months. Why? Because a relationship has been built and it is genuinely still being built. Ask your teammate to help you with a project or while you each are working on a task, curiously ask questions about how differently they are doing that particular task than you would if you were doing it. Appreciate the differences within each other! A teacher and a para can do this. Building a healthy relationship is not one-sided. No healthy relationship has ever become healthy with one person giving effort while the other person just received. That is exhausting and unhealthy!
Delegation with paraprofessional strengths in mind, communication, encouragement and building rapport are just four ways you can build a healthy paraprofessional and teacher relationship. Remember, it takes effort on both sides while considering each other’s participation and value in the classroom.
This was a collaboration blog post written with Monique Richardson from @theteachingcorner on instagram! Monique is currently a Resource Specialist at an elementary school. She got her degree in Organizational Leadership but she has worked in SpEd for over 8 years at autism clinics as a Behavior Interventionist and at schools as a paraprofessional. In addition to her position as a Specialist in CA, she enjoys informing other educators about the importance of a healthy teacher-para relationship in the classroom, singing and watching comedy on YouTube!
The editable, weekly para to-do list is a download in my FREE resource library on instagram @theedqueen! Head to my profile and click the link in my bio!