My job this year

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I have described my job a couple of times recently but I felt the need to go into a little more depth. I am what they call a paraprofessional, which is kind of a fancy name for an Aide. I work with kids who have learning disabilities and need more one-on-one help. Most of us actually work in a normal classroom but some do work in a special needs classroom. It's an overlooked job a lot of the time. No one fully understands what it is we do unless they are in the education field. No one realizes how important we are either until we aren't there. I am not THE teacher, but I do teach. I teach the student or students I'm assigned to. I get to know the child or children I work with very well. Paras often know their kids even better than the teacher. Some of us even know the other kids in the classroom better than the teachers because we do everything with these kids. We are there when the teachers are not. I go to lunch, gym, and recess with them all and I know them in a way the teachers often never do. I know my kids on an academic level better than most of the teachers do. I know what they are and aren't capable of. When they do assessments the paras can be crucial. I had to help the teacher with my kids assessments this year and had to fill out one for one of them. I actually worked with three different kids but only one officially. I had one that I helped with who didn't actually have a para but needed more assistance, I still had to help my one-on-one buddy first. then I helped the third kid when he moved in for the last month of school and my buddy wasn't there. I filled out behavior charts for all three. Legally I was only a one on one and the school could not officially assign me to another kid nor was I. I was only allowed to help the other kids if my buddy wasn't there or after I was done helping him. They sat all three of them at a table with me and they had another para for one of them for a while but they couldn't keep a para especially that close to the end of the year. Good paras are incredibly difficult to get because of the poor pay and lack of decent benefits and how hard the work actually is. People often don't realize how difficult it is until they start the job. Paras deal with all kinds of things from tantrums and children hitting them to actually teaching these kids things one on one that the teacher doesn't have the ability to teach them with the rest of the kids. We also work with the children without special needs when we are able to and come to get close to the whole class. I knew all of those kids by the end of the year and I loved them all. I have a whole folder full of drawings and things they gave me throughout the year. I gave pep talks to kids who were having an off day. I was basically another recess monitor at recess and helped at lunch too. We weren't paid for any of that, we were paid to work with the kid or kids we were assigned to but we do so much more. When I was first given this job I wasn't entirely sure what to expect because I was told I was being assigned to one student in kindergarten and I figured that my only job was to be to work with this one student but that wasn't my job at all. I worked with all of the kids and I got really close to them. I miss those kids this summer but it has been a much-needed break. I love my job and I didn't mind that I did more than I was actually hired for. I did it because I hate sitting by doing nothing and felt if I could help more kids then I should. My kid always came first and then the rest of the kids at my table. I got super close to these kids. The two extra kids I ended up working with at the end of the year were later in the year move-ins and they didn't want to put them in one of the other rooms because my buddy had the least severe one on one needs and it would be easier to split my time if I needed to. The teacher was livid because she felt we were already stretched thin. We had the most kids in our classroom while the one classroom only had 13 kids while we had 17 and then later 18 and 19. They originally wanted me/us to actually break compliance and have me work with two one on one kids but the teacher put her foot down because that could mean her teaching license. I felt so bad when I was talked to about it before she was. She had no clue until I told her and I thought she already knew. The principal and intervention specialist came in to talk to me because we were told we weren't actually getting this kid after first being told we were and then were told we were in fact getting the child. They wanted to make sure I was ok with it. I felt kind of put on the spot and the intervention specialist felt terrible because she told me I wasn't paid enough and it wasn't fair. She fought so hard for me and I appreciate her so much. I went off to the side to talk to the teacher about it and she was so livid. She said it wasn't fair to anyone. The issue was we didn't have enough paras to go around and the one para we had that wasn't technically assigned to one child they didn't trust and the teacher in that room was also just out of college and they didn't feel like she was a strong enough teacher. That meant we were the best option. After some serious conversations with everyone involved, they decided to put the new kid in our room with a second para. We had revolving paras for a long time but eventually, at the end of the year the buddy I was assigned to wasn't coming in for various reasons (my buddy's mom was the para they didn't want to work with the new kid). When my buddy didn't show up I ended up taking over as the other kid's para. The other paras they had working with the kid weren't the best. They had no clue what they were doing and one was a retired elementary school. I liked her she was nice but very old school thinking that just didn't work with this kid. She told him "We don't hit girls" instead of "We don't hit". The other para was autistic which is fine but I felt they both just set each other off and the para couldn't handle it. I was super glad the teacher and intervention specialist stepped in and said I could not work with two one on one students not just because of legal reasons but also because it's not possible to give one on one attention to two students who both need a lot of assistance. I think the worst part of the new kid coming was that it was for literally only the last six weeks of school with only two weeks of actual learning. It was pointless and for a week and a half of that time, he went on vacation. I didn't understand why we were going to such great measures for a kid who literally wasn't going to be there for much learning at all. The last month of school is usually just assessments and end-of-the-year fun stuff. The principal felt at a loss because he didn't have decent paras and felt he didn't have an option and I did feel for his predicament. They just couldn't put the new kid in the least experienced teacher's classroom with a para who was also not very good at their job. Anyway, this is just part of what we put up with. Short staffing, working more jobs than we are paid for, and poor pay for the amount of work we actually do but I still feel like it's worth it. I love my job despite it all. It's a skill set not everyone has and requires a ton of patience and most of us are still figuring out new things that work. I wasn't hired the first time I applied for this job because I couldn't pass their interview but they were so short staffed this time around that they barely interviewed me at all which is the only way I was hired but they ended up telling me I was amazing at my job and asked why I didn't try applying sooner and I was like "I did" in my head but just smiled on the outside.