Paraprofessional - PK Dual Language

Holyoke Public Schools•Holyoke, MA

4d•Onsite

About The Position

Holyoke Public Schools is a PreK-12 public school district serving nearly 4,800 students, of whom 80 percent are Latino/Latina, in 11 schools. We employ nearly 1,300 people who together educate and support a richly diverse community of learners. We are committed to recruiting and retaining top-quality educators who believe all children can and will learn and who strive daily to make school a joyful place of discovery, support, and belonging. The strategic plan, “Moving Forward Together,” builds on the strengths of our past while serving as a call to action to accelerate student learning by thinking differently about how we teach, how we work together, and how we support students’ well-being. Many successes contributed to Holyoke’s return to local governance after 10 years in state receivership. These include: The highest graduation rate on record of 77.1 percent, an increase of more than 15-points over 10 years. Meaningful, applied learning opportunities for high school students, including theme-based academies, career vocational technical education programming, work-based learning, and advanced coursework. A comprehensive approach to early literacy that includes strong core instruction and one-on-one tutoring, contributing to more students reading at grade level. A thriving dual language English/Spanish program, where nearly 900 students are on their path to becoming bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural. More than one-third of Holyoke teachers identify as people of color, a 19-point increase over 10 years. Many partnership programs support staff to earn licensure or additional certification. The work hours for a paraprofessional will be the same as for teachers. Paraprofessionals will report on days students are present.

Requirements

Associates Degree or higher; Or Highly qualified under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

Nice To Haves

Training or experience working with special needs students preferred.

Responsibilities

Administers, scores, and records such achievement and diagnostic tests as the teacher recommends for individual students.
Works with individual students or small groups of students to reinforce learning of material or skills initially introduced by the teacher.
Assists the teacher in devising special strategies for reinforcing material or skills based on a sympathetic understanding of individual students, their needs, interest, and abilities.
Operates and cares for equipment used in the classroom for instructional purposes.
Helps student master equipment or instructional materials assigned by the teacher.
Distributes and collects workbooks, papers, and other materials for instruction.
Guides independent study, enrichment work, and remedial work set up and assigned by the teacher.
Assists with the supervision of students during emergency drills, assemblies, play periods, and field trips.
Keeps bulletin board and other classroom learning displays up to date.
Reads to students, listens to students read, and participates in other forms of oral communication with students.
Assists students in the library or media center.
Checks notebooks, corrects papers, and supervises testing and make-up work, as assigned by the teacher.
Collects and records collection of money.
Serves as the chief source of information and help to any substitute teacher assigned in the absence of the regular teacher.
Maintains the same high level of ethical behavior and confidentiality of information about students as is expected of fully licensed teachers.
Participates in in-service training programs, as assigned.
The classroom teacher should handle serious discipline problems.
Paraprofessionals should not administer corporal punishment.