Purpose:

The Special Education Assistant assists the classroom teacher and school service providers by providing the following academic and behavioral support to an individual student or group of students:

A Special Education Paraprofessional assists individual students and small groups of students with academic and behavioral challenges in and outside of the classroom setting under the supervision of a Resource Specialist Teacher, General Education Teacher and/or Behavior Intervention Case Manager (BICM) certified School Psychologist. Additionally, you assist in implementation of Individualized Education Plans and/or behavior plans and track data daily to provide necessary information for the purposes of developing annual IEP goals and objectives for assigned student(s). You are someone who is comfortable and adaptable to working with diverse student populations and schools.

Essential Job Functions

• Assists student(s) in following classroom routines, working on-task, and completing assignments with increasing independence.
• Clarifies, rephrases, and repeats instructions from teacher for student(s) as needed.
• Collaborates with teacher in weekly lesson planning.
• Assists teacher with differentiating instruction and implementing academic and behavioral accommodations for student(s).
• Collaborates with school staff in behavioral support.
• Assists with implementation of behavior support plan, including behavioral data collection;  reinforcement of positive behavior; use of sensory breaks (as needed); and assistance in following through with consistent appropriate consequences for challenging behaviors.
• Use of Non-violent Crisis Intervention (NCI), Love and Logic and Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) strategies to prevent and modify maladaptive student behavior.
• Assists student(s) (including physical assistance as needed) with fine motor tasks and mobility, if needed.
• Work one-to-one with student(s) who have behavior challenges in school. Students served may include those with Autism Spectrum Disorders, behavioral and learning disabilities.
• Facilitate students’ academic, emotional, and social skills per IEP, and Behavior Support Plan.
• Collect academic and behavioral data.
• Attend in-service training sessions.
• Use software to monitor timelines, service delivery and data collection.