Paraeducator Handbook

The NEA Paraeducator Handbook was prepared by the Handbook Subcommittee of the Paraeducator Task Force Committee

NEA believes that paraeducators play an increasingly critical role in improving student achievement by supporting and assisting certificated/licensed educators in both instructional and other direct services. Further, NEA believes that all paraeducators not just special education paraeducators should be appropriately trained and supervised. Further, that professional development for paraeducators needs to be ongoing.

Adapted from NEA Resolution D-15.
Professional Development for Educational Support Personnel

Purpose of this handbook

Paraeducators—paraprofessionals who work in the field of education—comprise the largest segment of NEA’s Educational Support Personnel, and their numbers are growing rapidly. Although their titles are numerous, the primary goal of all NEA paraeducators is to help facilitate student achievement. Like other members of the education team, paraeducators embody professionalism in all the settings in which teaching and learning take place.

This Handbook is intended as an information source for paraeducators to give them a strong and accurate sense of the increasing nation-wide recognition that they are full-fledged members of the professional education team. Paraeducators are no longer isolated in their work. In fact, many state and local associations and resource centers are working toward meeting the requirements for paraprofessional employees set forth in IDEA ‘97. A major component of IDEA ‘97 is the provision of a comprehensive system of professional development for paraeducators.

Local education associations and unions will find useful information in the Handbook to help them represent paraeducator employees in collective bargaining. In this regard, the importance of professional development programs for paraeducators cannot be stressed too often or too vehemently: appropriate training is vital to the quality of paraeducator participation in the entire program of any state or school district.

The Handbook is also meant to assist state governments and local school districts that are initiating paraeducator programs mandated by IDEA ‘97. By raising a number of issues and posing questions for decision- makers consideration, it provides a framework to assist those responsible for establishing, developing, and maintaining such programs. Since each state will have to determine the best system to meet the particular needs of its schools, the contents of the Handbook are not intended to be prescriptive or to give detailed guidance for setting up such a system.

To "Who is the paraeducator?"