Argumentative Essay: The Role Of Paraprofessionals And Teachers

As someone who has worked as a paraprofessional, and has worked with paraprofessionals like the young man you described. Sometimes or at least in my experience paraprofessionals and teachers will see non-work behavior, and feel like it's not their place to say anything. Also, some may assume that you are already aware of the behavior. In my opinion, this is an issue that you should talk to the school principal about. I know as an special education teacher myself that it's hard to monitor what paraprofessionals are doing. When staff spends a lot of time engaging in excessive non-work behavior, it's a clear indication that there is ineffective supervision at the workplace. The best way to avoid non-work behavior is to have a supervisor or in a educational setting a Principal present outside of their office and observing the halls and classrooms. Whenever a supervisor (or Principal) is present in the workplace, then non-work action is unlikely to happen. Mostly, non-work behavior occurs at a specific period, and the best way a supervisor (or Principal) can approach this is indirect. If a supervisor (or Principal) notices a worker engaging in a non-work activity, the supervisor (or Principal) should focus directly on what the worker should be doing and not on the non-work behavior. Another reason for non-work behavior is that the worker has not been specified on what they should be doing at a particular time. It should ensure that the workers are sufficiently aware of their work expectations to avoid this. If possible, a written schedule of their duties should be given by the special education teacher and demonstrated how the duties should be performed. In my opinion, I don't feel like his behavior will promote other paraprofessionals to slack off. We're adults and you either have or good work ethic or you don't. When you have a good work ethic like I did when, I was a paraprofessional another paraprofessionals behavior won't change that. I do know from experience that paraprofessionals will get frustrated, because he is seemingly getting away with this behavior, and because they may have to make up for his lack of work ethic become exhausted from doing extra work, which may lead to a decrease in the quality of work they do. Lastly, you as the special education teacher need to communicate with the teachers, and paraprofessionals who are seeing this behavior, and ask them to communicate with you when they see this behavior. Make sure to take note of the time and places the non-work behavior is occurring, and take it to the Principal, so that they know what time and place to monitor the halls. My mother use to tell me if it isn't documented then it didn't happen. In order to find a solution to this behavior it's going to take some action on your part. There seems to be a lot of assumptions in this situation and no action.

Side note: I didn't want to include this in my response, because I wasn't sure if this was a professional response, so this is just a side note, because I feel like it should be said. In the discussion you mentioned that whether or not the young man has been reprimanded isn't really your business...the thing is that it's very much your business. His non-work behavior will affect your student's more than it will other paraprofessionals or teachers. I've personally have seen kids suffer, and act out, because they could see that the person who was put there to support them didn't care about them, and I'm sure that he is exhibiting this non-work behavior when he is supporting your students...so yes this behavior is very much your business and handle it like so....again this is just a side note. Sorry I'm just very passionate about this, because I've seen too many student's regress due to the attitudes of paraprofessionals like this young man.