Paraprofessionals & School Related Personnel
Click
Here to Visit Aft's Paras and School Related Personnel Page
The
Paraprofessional and School-Related Personnel (PSRP) division
of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, represents
more than 300,000 school support staff in K-12 districts,
colleges and universities. Our jobs include office employees,
custodians, maintenance workers, bus drivers, instructional
paraprofessionals, food service workers, school nurses and
health aides, technicians, groundskeepers, secretaries, bookkeepers,
mechanics, special education assistants and hundreds of other
job titles.
The AFT has organized school and college support staff since the early 1930s. Our first local affiliate of support staff was the Education Secretaries of Chicago. The work of the department is directed by the PSRP Program and Policy Council, an appointed leadership group of 28 members from around the country. This group provides guidance and advice on new programs and services for AFT PSRP members.
In some parts of the country we're called classified school employees; in others, we're called school support staff. No matter what name we go by, we're all proud to be members of the AFT, part of the team--along with our teacher and faculty co-workers-- that provides a quality education.
The AFT PSRP division is affiliated with:
WHAT'S
THE VERDICT ON NCLB FOR PARAPROFESSIONALS?
NCLB brought about a lot of changes for paraprofessionals. The most obvious are the education requirements. Less well-known is the addition of language describing the types of responsibilities paraprofessionals can be assigned in the classroom. The law and the Department of Education regulations say that paraprofessionals should provide instruction ONLY while working under the direct supervision of a teacher.
In
November 2006, the AFT conducted a Web-based survey of paraprofessionals
to determine whether this rule was being followed at the school
level. The results show that paraprofessionals do continue
to provide instruction, but a closer look at comments also
shows that this type of work is nearly always done under the
direction of a teacher, even if the teacher isn't always physically
present.
The
more pressing concern is the number of paraprofessionals who
are called upon to substitute either for the teacher with
whom they normally work or in another classroom. While the
practice has become less common since 2001, there are still
significant numbers of paraprofessionals asked to substitute.
The most important finding is that across every subgroup,
93 percent to 97 percent of paraprofessionals ONLY do this
work when they are asked to do so, dispelling the notion that
paraprofessionals self-assign.
To take the survey, go to http://www.aft.org/topics/nclb/paras.htm.
To
view the survey results, visit http://www.aft.org/psrp/topics/download/NCLB2006ParaSurvey.pdf.
