By Chandra Madafferi, President and CEO, Michigan Education Association

Educating Michigan’s students requires a team effort from everyone involved in public education, including the thousands of paraeducators across our state who are essential to making our hometown schools work.

Yet paraeducators’ critical contributions to our children’s education — especially when it comes to helping students with learning or physical disabilities — are often overlooked and undervalued.

That’s why the Michigan Education Association is focused on lifting up the important work of paraeducators throughout Michigan. That includes making sure they receive the high-quality training they need to help our kids learn, improving their compensation and ensuring they are treated as the professionals they are.

Partnering with the Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education and the state Legislature’s OPTIMISE task force, MEA recently hosted the “Paraeducator Bootcamp,” a daylong training held at the Plymouth-Canton Educational Park. About 300 paraeducators attended training sessions focused on research-backed special education practices, along with practical tools and strategies to support students with disabilities.

Our shared goal is to provide paraeducators with meaningful professional development opportunities that help them better serve students with special needs and increase professionalism within the special education field.

In the past, paraeducators were sometimes dismissed as mere “helpers,” but a growing body of research shows that these hardworking professionals are integral to the success of students with physical or learning disabilities, mental health concerns, behavioral issues, and a host of other individual challenges.

Paraeducators often work one-on-one with our most vulnerable students. Some students, such as those with ADHD, need help focusing and staying on task. Others may need help with language difficulties, math worksheets, toileting issues, adaptive technology, emotional outbursts, transitions between activities, basic feeding, or any number of other needs.

Regardless of a student’s individual needs, paraeducators help make the child’s educational experience as positive as possible and help every student reach their full potential. After all, every student — no matter their disability or circumstances — deserves the opportunity to succeed.

But despite the growing recognition of the importance of paraeducators’ work, they are still woefully undercompensated for all they do. According to National Education Association data, the average paraeducator earns less than $30,000 a year.  Most work second or third jobs just to make ends meet, and about 73% report spending money out of pocket to provide food or supplies to their students.

It should come as no surprise, then, that paraeducators have high turnover. This constant churn in special education can leave vulnerable students without adequate one-on-one help and create uncertainty for the students who need stability the most.

Frontline paraeducators recognize the importance of receiving the latest research-based training, and that’s why they’ve been calling for higher-quality professional development programs. MEA and our partners in the education community are heeding that call and providing more training opportunities for paraeducators and other education support professionals across the state, so our public schools have the most qualified educators working with our students.

Along the way, by increasing training and professionalism among paraeducators, we can — and must — raise their salaries and create more career advancement opportunities for these dedicated but oft-overlooked educators. This stability for paraeducators and their students will keep more talented people in the education field and improve student outcomes.

Students with disabilities should have access to all the same opportunities as any other child. Paraeducators can help make that happen — but only if we have enough qualified paraeducators in every single school, in every corner of our state, providing professional support to every student who needs it.

Labor Voices

Labor Voices columns are written on a rotating basis by United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, Michigan Education Association President Chandra Madafferi, Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights Executive Secretary-Treasurer Tom Lutz and selected Service Employees International Union members.