Ep. 47: Managing Paras in Special Education: Building Teamwork, Accountability, and Clear Boundaries

Working with paras in special education classrooms can be both rewarding and challenging. In this episode, Audra and Caitlin share practical strategies for creating a positive, productive environment for paras, fostering teamwork, and addressing common issues like problem behaviors and resistance to change. 

✨ Key Takeaways

• 📝 Set clear expectations: Overcommunicate and provide written resources like para binders for clarity.  
• 🌟 Acknowledge strengths: Reinforce and assign tasks that align with your paras' skills while preventing burnout.  
• 🛑 Address issues early: Redirect problem behaviors quickly and document actions for accountability.  
• 🤝 Respect and teamwork: Approach paras with respect and encourage collaboration through team-building activities.  
• 🔄 Support growth: Provide feedback, training, and creative solutions to address challenges like cliques or inexperience.  

📚 Resources

•  🖼️ FREE Visuals from the episode today
• 🗂 Caitlin's Staff Training & Para Binder: This bundle includes the perfect professional development resources to help staff feel prepared to accommodate these learners.  
• 🎥 Modeling Techniques: Use in-class opportunities to demonstrate best practices for paras.  
• 📋 Documentation Tips: Track issues and interventions for clarity and communication with admin.  
• 🤗 Random Acts of Gratitude: Small gestures, like bagels or coffee, can boost team morale.  
• 💬 Join Our Facebook Group: Connect with us and share your experiences at The Misfit Behaviorists.  

Join Us...
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Transcript

Ep. 47: Managing Paras in Special Education: Building Teamwork, Accountability, and Clear Boundaries

Caitlin: [00:00:00] And I just remember thinking, I got to the point where I was like, I have no training in this, nobody taught me how to work with, supervise, make everyone comfortable, train them. Like that did not come into play in any of my special ed training. And I felt really overwhelmed. 

Intro: Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran, here to bring you evidence based strategies with a student centered focus. Let's get started. 

Audra: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Misfit Behaviors. We have Caitlin with us today and we were thinking a couple of different things we want to talk about over the next couple of weeks. One of the things is I've seen a number of questions recently in the Facebook group and some other places about working with paras and adults, and I found over the years that we get into this a lot working for the kids because we love the kids and we get in there and like "working with adults is its own little challenge and stuff". So tell me, Caitlin, over the [00:01:00] years, what's kind of been your experience? 

Caitlin: I feel like mostly everyone has the same story, right? You get into it working for the kids, just like you said, but I remember being 24 and running my first classroom. It was an out of district placement. So I had seven students. Each with almost a one to one, so in other words, I was managing, working with seven students and seven adults. And I just remember thinking, I got to the point where I was like, I have no training in this. Nobody taught me how to work with, supervise, make everyone comfortable, train them. Like that did not come into play in any of my special ed training. And I felt really overwhelmed. 

Audra: Yeah. I've often thought like when we go through university training or whatever, one of the things they need to do a class on working with adults. I mean, just managing people, managing schedules and personalities. And honestly, a lot of women, you know, and women are unique. It's working with a whole bunch of women [00:02:00] and it takes a special person to be able to handle all that. 

Caitlin: It definitely comes with its own set of benefits, but also challenges. 

Audra: Yeah. And if you think you're working in an office and a cubicle and your friend is over there, when you're in school, you're like, you're all on top of each other, six hours a day, it's constant. And then you just, and you don't get to choose. So you have very different personalities. They do not always mix well. Sometimes they're great. And sometimes they don't work. So I threw together some visuals. I'm going to share my screen. The first one I was thinking, PARAS. More than anything, I am so grateful. I would say 80 to 90 percent of the adults that I've worked with have been top notch. I mean, just great people. Amazing. So underpaid, just like for what they do. I would give them my salary if I could, just wonderful people. A lot of times they're moms, and so they understand what it's like to be a parent and in a situation like that. And they are the backbone of the [00:03:00] classroom. And so I came up with this dumb little acronym of PARAS just thinking about how, over the years, I've worked with paras. So P being for like providing those clear expectations from the beginning, from the very first time you guys all walked through the door. So a para may not come in with the education, the background that we have or the experience that we have. So just providing those expectations from the very beginning. I know some people have developed, and I want to create, a para binder that has everything in one place. Have you done that before? 

Caitlin: I have so I have my ABA classroom para binder. I think the 1st couple of pages are devoted to what you're saying as far as expectations, like the routine of the classroom. And then most of that binder is more like actual discrete trial behavior management, like techniques and tricks that I would want someone in my classroom to know about and reference. But I think to your point of the clear expectations, it's almost like. If you feel like you're communicating, you need to be [00:04:00] over communicating because for every much that you say, they're not going to hear every part of it. When in doubt over communicate and have it written down to review it later. So they have access to it.

Audra: So then that's P. So A acknowledge strengths and efforts. I think we're using just the same principles we do the kids is it make sure that you're reinforcing your paras for their excellent behaviors, so to speak. I've worked with a bunch of different paras who have different strengths. And so within your classroom, you'll get to know what your paras do well and assign them those tasks. Sometimes their strengths aren't necessarily what they enjoy. So make sure you keep that in mind too. I've had this happen. A para who's really good with extreme behaviors. Well, you don't want to always put her with the most challenging kids, because then you're going to have burnout too. So rotating people through and always just making sure you acknowledge what they're good at.

Caitlin: Yeah. And that can be awkward, right? I mean, certainly I know for me, one, just being so young, oftentimes the paras are the moms or someone coming [00:05:00] back to their career later in life. I remember thinking that I was the youngest person in the room at one point by, you know, 10 plus years. And yet I was supposed to manage these people and I was their supervisor. And so I had been told praise, reinforce the adults too, but it just felt, I didn't want to be false with it. And at times felt awkward, but I think when you make that an active part of what you're trying to do and make it very genuine, it becomes more comfortable with time. 

Audra: And having just that open communication with them. Ask them straight up, you know, how do you receive feedback? Do you want to be told in the moment something's going great? Do you want to talk about it later? If I have a concern, is it easier for us to have, you know, a conversation the next day? Or do you want to hear about it then so that you can change in the moment? So just having those open conversations helps too. 

Caitlin: Yeah, that's such a great point. 

Audra: And then R is like redirect problem behaviors early. Don't let it become a big thing because it's just harder to change later on. 

Caitlin: Totally agree with that. There's nothing to be gained by waiting. 

Audra: And then A, so P A R [00:06:00] A is approaching with respect. Your paras are the backbone of your classroom. So, whether they're young or have a lot of years of experience, always showing that deference, that respect to them for their stage in life and what they bring to the table. Because there's some amazing people out there in this job. And it's sometimes there are people who could be teachers have chosen not to be. I've even worked with the teacher who was a certified teacher, but chose to be a para because she didn't want the responsibility of the teacher. She was fantastic. And so just showing her that respect that defference for her. 

Caitlin: I love that. Just acknowledging. And you, like you said, you might have someone coming in with a certified teaching degree and you might have someone coming in who's never done this, but it's still bringing something to the table just by wanting to be there. I have seen a few instances where you get that teacher who has the mentality that it's like, well, I'm the special ed teacher, I'm in charge. You know, they're here to listen to me, and that just never goes well, because if you're not having the respect of somebody wanting to do this job for as little as they get paid, I mean, that's going to be a really uphill [00:07:00] battle.

Audra: Truth, and then S paras is supporting growth with feedback and training, we're providing feedback to them. We're training them, giving them as much as we can as much as our districts allow us to do is they love the training opportunities. I have not had anybody go "I don't want to learn that." They are soaking in the information. So really advocate for your paras to get time, 'cause I think that's the biggest problem is, at least the paras that I've worked with, their contract days starts the moment the students get there and they end the moments as students leave. And then there's no time for us to do any sort of feedback and training. So really advocate as much as you can for your paras to have some set aside time. 

Caitlin: And make the most of the time you have together in the classroom while the kids are there, which I know is not always ideal. And then people are out and you don't have time to sit with 2 staff and 1 student. But if you do, even if you just have that gift of like, somebody going to speech or another student being absent, jump in and model for that para. Like, there's one thing to share the information. There's one thing to write the behavior [00:08:00] plan, but it's just so valuable to show them in person how you envision it being done. And a lot of times I find we bridge some gaps in that process that we didn't even know we were approaching differently. 

Audra: All the way and get creative. I mean, we had one year where they had late start, but the paras didn't come in until the students got there. So it's that one hour a week that we could use, but they weren't paid. And so we got really creative when we had each para go home 10 minutes early. So they kind of banked a little bit of time. So they came in that hour on late start and we could do training at that point. So just, if you can get creative, if you need to. 

Caitlin: I know a lot of the classrooms I've worked in would, they're required to be there the minute the students arrive, but if you have people willing to come like literally two minutes early, you can get so much. If you just hold, we would call them a briefing. Just talk to me for 30 seconds before we go to the buses. This kid needs extra clothes today. This one that we're going to start something new before lunch. And you can just bang out a couple of quick reminders in that short time. 

Audra: So then I thought about, okay, there [00:09:00] are challenging para situations, and we get the questions on the Facebook group. If you're not a part of the Facebook group, well go find us there, The Misfit Behaviorists. In the history that I have with all the paras, I kind of broke it down and I've seen these kind of three, there's obviously other challenges we deal with, kind of these three categories of challenging situations. And the first is that inexperienced para, whether they're young or just haven't done this before, and they have a lack of confidence they may be over relying on the teacher for every direction. And I was saying, okay, what would I do for that kind of inexperience? I thought, okay, I think I would do the clearest onboarding and mentorship that I can. And I think the biggest thing I've seen helps with is giving them small and manageable jobs as they build their skillset. So their little toolbox may be small to start with. So giving them very specific, small tasks to do in the beginning helps a lot with kind of that inexperience in building their confidence too. I find that that's just works so much better than giving, this is your schedule. Go to it. Just give them very [00:10:00] specific things to do. 

And then the second kind of challenging one is those set in their ways. Often little bit older paras and maybe been doing it for 25 or 30 years. And if you're a brand new teacher coming in and you've had a para that's been in that classroom for 10 years, that can cause some real conflict too. Either they're resistant to the change or new strategies, or just you as the new teacher, need to build some confidence. You're gonna have to learn a lot from them too. So there's kind of that give and take. And so what have you had in your experience dealing with paras like this, Caitlin? 

Caitlin: That can be tough. I love the way that you broke down the example. I think I'm jumping ahead, but having the conversation outright of saying, look, look, I know you've been doing this for so long. You've been in this school longer than me, or you've been with this kid longer than me, even. I really value that, but can we try this because like, this isn't working and just being really clear and direct and like, see how it goes together type of mentality and kind of [00:11:00] just outright reminding each other that, like, we are on the same team.

Audra: It's just like leading with respect and then, like, you mentioned using data to kind of frame those changes. So I found that sometimes they're set in their ways because they haven't seen that something else might work. And if you can gather some sort of data, say, Hey, even if you're talking about research articles, even if you bring something that's recently come out, Hey, there's this new thing that came out. They did research and all of this stuff. And this is a new strategy that they said works really well. I'd love to try this for a couple of weeks. Can you help me set up a system where we can see if this works for us too? And so that hopefully gets you both on the same page. 

Caitlin: When in doubt, I'm just like, I don't want to say pleading, but I was like, humor me. I've tried the research angle. I've tried the like same team angle, but in my years, I've had a few paras that are just like, well, it's always going to be this way. You know, mom's at home, so nothing we can do. And I'm like, you know what? Just let's throw this out [00:12:00] there. Yeah, let's try this for a week. 

Audra: We had one situation where and it was a nice, nice, nice older lady that had been doing it a very long time and we tried to make some training changes and it just wasn't sticking. And it wasn't for lack of trying. She wasn't resistant. It wasn't in her skillset. And so we just ended up putting her with a very specific student in a very specific role. And she did fine there until she finally retired. But you just kind of have to work what she could work. 

Caitlin: We placed her right next to the door. And you know what too is sometimes I found myself become a little bit frustrated by that response of someone who's not willing to try, who's set in their ways. And then over time, I'm like, if I reverse it, if I flip the script myself and call them out in a positive, compliment them in front of our supervisor, I find them soften a bit. And I'm like, maybe even though they've been doing this for so long, they have this false bravado because they really are [00:13:00] insecure about, have I been here too long? Do I not know what I'm doing? But just kind of killing them with kindness for lack of better words sometimes. 

Audra: That's a really good point. And then the third kind of problem area I've seen is the cliques that we get from being a whole bunch of women and, you know, paras, they form these tight social groups, which is great, but sometimes it excludes others. So, if you have a team, or you've had some paras that work really well together for many years, and then you have new paras come in and them having to figure out their role within that team, it can be really hard. I've thought use some of your training times for team building so that they have a chance to get outside of their clique and start to build a relationship with any new people. I've had to had some very direct conversations with some cliques before and say, Hey, we've got new paras in here. I know you guys are close, but let's make an extra effort even just this week. If we can to see how it is, if we can integrate some of these new paras within our fun little group here. 

Caitlin: It's amazing to see someone [00:14:00] so confident when they can do this well and embrace somebody who's new, who's struggling potentially. And I'm like, that's the person that I was lucky enough to have that model when I first started. And so I feel like if anyone came to her with like a gossip or all of that new person's not working out and she just shut it down. It was just like sidestepped it. Like they're doing the best they can. Like our job is to help them. And that was such a powerful model for me. Cause it can be easy to fall into those traps. So that's always very impressive to me when someone can do that well and not buy into that. 

Audra: You bring up a really good point. If you have a clique in your classroom, and there always is sort of a ringleader of the clique, if you can go to that person directly, privately and say, hey, this is something that I'm concerned about, can you help me lead this group to be more inclusive with everybody? If you can get that person on board with you, that might help that situation too. 

Caitlin: Totally turn it into like, we need your help with that. 

Audra: And then I thought, okay, what do we do if those, [00:15:00] any of those strategies aren't working? So I came up with six quick ideas of what we can do. So first restate the expectation clearly in a private conversation with a para. I've noticed phone use, which is a big thing. "I've noticed that phone use is still on and an issue and our expectation is..."; so doing this privately and having those one on one conversations about something directly first before you do anything else. 

Caitlin: 100 percent because once in a while, it is just an honest mistake. Like I've had to say to people, I know you're new. I don't know if you know, but we're really not supposed to do a lot for recess earlier, do this thing or have the phone on or something like that. 

Audra: And then if that doesn't work, then try if- then language, if the phone continues to be a problem, we're going to have to dot dot dot. And just like we would with students, just be clear. Don't make it a big consequence, like, you know, a punishment type thing. But these are our expectations. We've already talked about this. Now we need to abide with this or this particular thing will happen. And then if you have to start documenting, and that may be that [00:16:00] you're just starting to jot down, you've had the conversations privately. You've set what the expectations are. You, you know, that they know what's going to happen if they don't comply. Start documenting what's going on. And that doesn't have to be, you're sending in a formal report or anything. Just start jotting stuff down privately, keep it private, be very careful about where you put it too, because it may be if things do escalate, you'll have to have some sort of information to share with admin, which would then be the next step if you say re-cycled back to having those private conversations and things aren't changing, you do need to start bringing in admin into those situations if you had to do that before.

Caitlin: Yes, and I think the documentation is definitely helpful again, just keeping it, but it's just for me. But "yes, I saw this, I saw the phone use", but also document, like, then I told them about it. Then it either still happened or it didn't. Then we had a class meeting about it. And so if I'm just like, sitting there documenting everything they're doing, like, no, I'm also documenting what I'm doing about it. And if it has to go [00:17:00] further, then I feel like I'm accountable with what I've done. 

Audra: Yeah, that's excellent. And then, you know, if for whatever reason, you don't have the support or it's just not getting anywhere, if that's not working, then try to think outside the box, you know, how can you adjust the roles? If you are dealing with a phone issue, can you put them in a role where they can't use their phone? If they're running a class or doing a craft where they have stuff on their hands, they can't use their phone. How can you, you know, what is the, is the DRI? You know, how can you adjust the role, if possible, so that it stops being a problem.

Caitlin: You hold these bananas all day. For sure. And you have to be careful because I think we're kind of seeing the writing on the wall. You're going through all these, but leading to that last step of like, what is the next step? Do you have to go to admin? I definitely would advocate for like looking into your school policies. Before even if this is even at all a concern. 

Audra: Yeah, now that's a really good point because I did put kind of admin [00:18:00] in 4 and admin at 6 because that 4th step really is finding out what are your policies and districts is talking to your admin before you have a meeting and finding out. I'm looking for support on this. What would be if we can't resolve this issue? What will be the steps that we need to take? And then say, you try these other steps and you do have to have that formal meeting. You at least know what to expect and what's going to happen or not happen at that point. 

I'll put these all into the Facebook group, but I have, you know, 5 key strategies that help us, you know, just. It's leading by example and random acts of gratitude and different ideas so that your classroom seems like a wonderful place to be. And that's what we all want. 

Caitlin: Right. And I think that non contingent reinforcement is like, you know, on Fridays I'm bringing bagels or like coffee's on me Monday. Like those little things are really important. Like just teammates to teammates showing how appreciative you are. 

Audra: Yeah. And we are, they really are the backbone. We couldn't run the programs, any of them without our paras. If you're out there listening, we love you. Stick around. The year will be over at some point. Don't [00:19:00] go anywhere. So again, find us on Facebook, The Misfit Behaviorists. Don't forget to subscribe, share if you like what we're doing so that we want to keep doing it. 

Caitlin: Yes, and join the Facebook group and also drop comments on what is going on in your classroom or your practice so that we can make an episode out of that as well. 

Intro: Thanks for listening to The Misfit Behaviorists, and be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.