Florida Para's Meet the Standard!

Meeting the Standard for Paraprofessionals at Saddlebrook Summer Institute Pictured from left to right and front to back: Row 1 - Vickie Joseph, Maria Deschamps, Elvira Alejardro, Melissa Pfeiffer, Danielle LaChance; Row 2 - Joan Procida, Grace Wood, Carrie Green, Janet Huff, Mickie Alamo, Ginarys Nazario, Joy Shellings, Cheri Arp, Pat Killins, Maria Ardnt, Khea Davis; Row 3 - Donna Aldridge, Jana Maples, Lissa Stevens, Mary Musser, Trainer Stacy Williams of Lake County, Sara Severn, Lynn Bartlett

The Polk Education Association (PEA), led by Marianne Capoziello, has helped more than 250 instructional

paraprofessionals achieve the "highly qualified" requirement designated in No Child Left Behind and the recent Florida Differentiated Accountability (FLDA) legislation. FLDA has profound implications for all of Florida's school personnel. PEA

wanted to make sure their paras had multiple paths to meet the requirement. Working in conjunction with the Polk district

administration, FEA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), PEA organized classes using the Educational Research & Dissemination Meeting the Standards for Paraprofessionals (MSP) course to train and test paras on reading and math skills. To date, PEA has offered seven classes led by trainers from Pinellas, Putnam and Lake counties. Pinellas trainers include: Lynn Bartlett, Jana Maples, Wendy Paser, and Gloria Smith. Also facilitating training were Charley McClaren of FEA, Courtney Carter of Putnam and Linda Connor, Laura Sachs and Stacy Williams of Lake. This year, more than 90 paras met the high standard and learned the background knowledge necessary to be skillful instructors for Polk's students. 

In anticipation Florida would expand the number of schools requiring staff to achieve the highly qualified status, FEA has also made para training a priority. In June, Governor Christ signed FLDA into law and mandated all instructional paraprofessionals in non-Title I schools be "highly qualified" by the 2011-12 school year. Within days of this directive, the FEA Professional Development department trained more than 20 paras in MSP at Saddlebrook.

MSP participants from PEA and Saddlebrook praised the course content. They say it gives them background information and increases their understanding of key reading and math concepts. PEA President Capoziello highlighted the importance of this training when she stated, "This is quality information. The training is tied to classroom effectiveness. My paras tell me the knowledge they gained from this training has helped them support their students' learning. Our paras were also able to apply it at home with their own children and grandchildren. PEA wants to make sure our members have more than one avenue to learn vital information to be great coaches and cheerleaders so students can achieve."

In addition to the paraprofessionals trained at Saddlebrook, teachers from Broward, Citrus, Pinellas, and Putnam participated in a train-the-trainer component where they learned course content, served as coaches and examined training techniques. These trainers will be facilitating courses in their own counties and may be available for trainings in other Florida locals.

For information about the Florida Differentiated Accountability plan, go to the FLDOE website.

FLDOE has also released a memo and report giving recent updates on FLDOE. You can access these documents at:
http://info.fldoe.org/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-5457/dps-2009-120.pdf
http://www.fldoe.org/board/meetings/2009_07_14/daplan.pdf

For information about the ER&D Meeting the Standards for Paraprofessionals, contact Charley McClaren.