Paraeducator Support:

SUMMARY

Citation:

French, Nancy K. (2001). Supervising paraprofessionals: A survey of teacher practices. The Journal of Special Education, 35, 41-53.

Summary:

The purpose of this data-based study was to find out information about how special educators supervise the paraprofessionals that are assigned to work with them. A series of research questions provided the framework for this study .

1. To what extent do special education teachers supervise paraprofessionals?
2. How have they learned to supervise as they do? What effect does training to supervise have on practice?
3. To what extent are teachers involved in selecting paraprofessionals, planning for them, meeting with them, training them, and evaluating them?
4. What tasks are frequently assigned to paraprofessionals, and how are tasks shared or distributed between teachers and paraprofessionals?
5. To what extent are teachers satisfied with the amount and quality of paraprofessional assistance?

Subjects or participants:

The questionnaire was sent to 447 special education teachers in Colorado, 321(71.8%) responded

Design:

A questionnaire (draft reviewed by 14 national experts) with 28 questions.

Results:

Several concerns were brought to light through the analysis of this questionnaire. They included:

Few teachers were part of the selection or hiring of the paraprofessionals assigned to work with them.

75% of these teachers responding to the survey supervised one or more paraprofessionals. The majority of these had no formal preparation or training in how to supervise paraprofessionals.

88% of the teachers surveyed relied on real-life experiences and their own intuition to supervise their paraprofessionals. Yet, 18% reported that they never had face to face contact with their paraprofessionals. One possible explanation, reported by French (page 47), for this is that most paraprofessionals are hourly employees and their time is better fulfilled by working with students.

Approximately 81% of teachers surveyed reported that they do not plan for their paraprofessionals. Those that did make plans typically did so through oral instruction.

43% of the teachers regularly included IEP goals into their lesson plans and approximately 43% consistently specified how the paraprofessionals were supposed to document student activity. Fifty-one percent included information about the purpose or rationale of the lesson in regards to the student’s IEP.

This study showed the gaps in communication and training that can result in inadequate supervision. French suggested that special educators need to be a part of the selection and hiring of the paraprofessionals with whom they work. She further stated that they need to be prepared to "select, direct, train, monitor, evaluate, meet with, and otherwise supervise paraprofessionals." (page 52)

Summarized by: Stephen Doll - February, 2002