Abstract

The number of paraeducators being employed has risen drastically in the last decade. The increased number of paraeducators that are being employed by schools is often an issue that complicates the entrance of beginning teachers into the public schools. To investigate the research interests, the researchers posted a survey for first and second year teachers on surveymonkey.com. A Likert scale was used to measure comfort level for working with paraeducators. The survey also measured the amount of teacher preparation respondents received for working with paraeducators. This national survey of 125 first and second year teachers found that the majority of responders recognized paraeducators to be a resource in their classroom. Although the majority of teachers felt comfortable supervising and planning with their paraeducators, only 59% felt comfortable evaluating them. First and second year teachers indicated that the vast majority (80%) had less than one (1) class hour in their teacher preparation program spent on learning how to work with paraeducators. Implications of these findings as well as recommendations for future research will be discussed.