General

CEC is the leading voice for special and gifted education. Through the vision and dedication of more than 30,000 members, CEC sets the standard for high quality education for children and youth with exceptionalities. The Council ensures the needs of children and youth with exceptionalities are met in educational legislation, establishes professional standards for the field and develops initiatives to improve special education practice. And, CEC is known as THE source for information, resources and professional development for special educators. To read more about CEC CLICK HERE

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.

We recently came across a couple of stressful accounts from paras of their first day back from school:

I'm a paraeducator for children. Today was our first day. I am praying for patience. Not with the kids. The kids are great. My stress levels are so high after this morning, that I have a horrible headache, and my shoulder is killing me from being tensed for so long. (from Lord, it's Monday)

And this one...

I missed this when it was posted back in May, but it is good enough that it is still worth sharing. Below is a blog post where a kind teacher takes the time to publicly thank her two paraprofessionals at the end of the school year:

I am dedicating this blog post to my two Para-Professionals that I work with, Mrs. Rogers and Mr. Nelson. Both have made my year spectacular and I truly mean that I could not have made it without them.

Wikipedia now has an entry titled Paraprofessional Educator that begins:

A paraprofessional educator, alternatively known as para-pros, instructional assistants, teacher's aides or classroom assistants, is a teaching-related position within a school generally responsible for specialized or concentrated assistance for students in elementary and secondary schools.