Thanks to all who attended our 2013 NRC Paraeducator Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. We had some amazing Welcome and Keynote Speakers as well as great break-out sessions. Participants provided very positive feedback and felt that their time was well spent. Further, they commented on taking away valuable information that could be implemented and shared with others.

We are currently in the process of collecting electronic copies of Power Point Presentations and Handouts to share with those who were not able to join us. Once we have collected this information, we will post it to the website.

First of all, thank you to everyone who filled out the survey on paraeducator training in our recent newsletter! There were lots of responses and we gathered some great data, the first part of that data is summarized below:

Do you have paraeducator training in your state?

• 53.1% Answered Yes
• 46.9% Answered No

Who provides the paraeducator training in your state?

The training providers included the school, University Department of Family Education, community college, school district, local teachers, state support team, National Education Association, area education agencies, union, paraeducator consortium and a training and technical assistance network.

There are now over 25 presentations we have received and posted on our site from the 2011 National Conference. If you missed the conference or would like to back and review some of the sessions they are available here.

Keyed In, Logged On, Charged Up!Paraprofessionals Connecting with 21st Century Learners

The conference started off this morning with the opening keynote address from Marilyn Likins and Gina R. Scala. Gina talked about knewly revised Knowledge & Skill Standards for Paraprofessionals from CEC (coming soon) and the importance of being involved in legislative issues. Gina challenged everyone in the audience to send a letter to a legislator once a week.

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”
~Harry S. Truman

Marilyn then reviewed the work fo the National Paraeducator Leadership Forum last summer and the top 5 paraprofessional issues that they worked on and some of the common challenges: