# ParaEducate: Professional Support for Paraeducators > Working with students with disabilities since 2012 ## Posts - [Be My Direction](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2025/10/14/be-my-direction/): Renay was pushed into professional development recently, and they were looking at a curriculum in use. There is no secret, Renay is not a fan of the curriculum that is currently required to be used, but it is also a starting point when one has nothing, so there are bits she agrees with overall. There are alternatives, but they are also not nearly as comprehensive as other options. But later in the week, she was in a conversation with a doctoral candidate, and she was asked some questions about a survey she had filled out a month prior. And she […] - [Time In A Bottle](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2025/09/15/time-in-a-bottle/): Renay has been bouncing between her home life, work life, and her extended family for the past few weeks, and it looks like it will be a few more weeks. But she just came back from a conference drawn by two individuals who are familiar faces. Renay is also preparing some proposals for conferences; she is getting back to the parts of ParaEducate that have always been successful. But either way, the school year is underway and there are more pressing issues at hand for paraeducators and their teams. Data collection Data collection is taught annually for every team. But […] - [The Shadow On The Ground](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2025/08/25/the-shadow-on-the-ground/): Renay has been dealing with some personal issues since the school year began. While personal issues like a funeral, medical needs, or even jury duty happen to us all professionally, helping students to navigate the challenges of staff potentially being out due to death, pregnancy, or other reasons is taxing on the remaining staff and the students. Nobody wants to be out when they work with students. Having made subnotes, there are a few ways notes can go. Renay, by habit, is overtly wordy. Details about student/teacher/adult relationships, expectations in a classroom with a given teacher, and when breaks are […] - [Do You Even Know You Met Me?](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2025/08/11/do-you-even-know-you-met-me/): Renay is running around getting things ready for her return to campus. Renay’s district is one of the earliest to open a new academic year in the county so, there is a certain level of worry and concern with the way the weather has been unpredictable in California. But here we are just the same. Time cards… We may seem redundant in the world by stating that Renay has put in nearly 100 unpaid hours getting her room ready for the school year. This includes planning for the staff she will have in just a few days. Renay is processing […] - [This is how it feels...](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2025/06/24/this-is-how-it-feels/): Renay was in a flurry of graduation-related activities for her personal life. Her godsons, J and W, were in their respective graduations in different areas of the region, and Renay was out running around getting to those events. As she sat with family both J and W are the middle of the family, so while the tears of relief that each of these young men are on their way to their futures, there is not the nostalgia that happened when the twins graduated over ten years ago, and certainly very different from C’s graduation just last year. When Renay spoke […] - [Sum of Every High and Every Low](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2025/05/19/sum-of-every-high-and-every-low/): Renay was working on preparing a presentation for the last two years of her career. Students and their work were a part of the presentation. Unfortunately for us, this presentation is only for the district she is working in, but as far as sharing what happens in any given classroom, it is a wonder sometimes how much can be accomplished by students in a year. Book List It surprised Renay a few weeks ago when staff members said, “I do not know any books that highlight children with disabilities.” Renay had to go around and ask, but then, the respondents […] - [Wrap Party CalTash2025](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2025/04/07/wrap-party-caltash2025/): If we never spoke about it, we might sometimes forget that Renay spent her time right out of high school in Los Angeles. And part of that life was the glamor of understanding the film industry. When CalTASH 2025 ended up with the theme of “Rolling Out the Red Carpet”, it was just that moment of return for Renay. This was the first time Renay did not have a role as a presenter or as a student. This privilege lent her some additional flexibility to choose sessions that perhaps she would not have listened to previously. Friday morning opened with […] - [Stay Awhile And Listen...](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2025/03/24/stay-awhile-and-listen/): This month, Renay was struck by an image she saw that was created by a group of people working in Special Education. It was a question on chart paper that was asked, “Where do you believe you are strongest, ‘planning’, ‘data and analysis’, ‘student engagement’, or ‘curriculum’.” This question went out to the whole room including paraeducators and teachers. And then everyone turned in a sticky note marking in the chart where they were. What shocked Renay was that only one person put a note in Data and Analysis, a different single person put their skill as Planning. Most of […] - [Thirteen.](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2025/02/28/thirteen/): Our year thirteen starts at the start of what we can only assume is the flurry of chaos before chaos unlocks all the doors. We are prepared to answer the stand for the students with disabilities and students in public education in general. To be clear, we will always advocate for students with disabilities. We advocate for students to get access to information like their general education peers. We advocate for opportunities at their campuses to be included with their general education peers. We advocate for education for students with disabilities. We advocate for all students because one day they […] - [Tougher Than Diamonds](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2025/02/03/tougher-than-diamonds/): The world of education is currently in flux. And we at ParaEducate are trying to keep up. We also know that for many folks the changes that are coming daily may feel too much. It is perfectly acceptable to pause and take care of yourself. Renay has spent the last few weeks listening to a webinar from Supporting Inclusive Practices. The energy that has gone into making sure that students have the systems in place from schools to be included in general education makes things much easier from some logistical perspectives. The inclusive models available help keep the idea that […] - [To The Place I Belong](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2025/01/13/to-the-place-i-belong/): We choose the titles of our blog posts nearly on a whim. But this week in early January 2025 while we had started this original post in December 2024, we feel this title is so appropriate. The wildfires in Southern California are just another reminder of the way the universe can disrupt lives in unexpected ways. Our thoughts are with many of ParaEducate’s supporters in the Los Angeles evacuation zones. If you did not know—Renay has close ties to Los Angeles as she spent her undergraduate time there. The magic that exists when you are coming around some of the […] - [Pay No Heed To What They Say](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/11/04/pay-no-heed-to-what-they-say/): Renay has had a list of topics that came up this month. Some of the topics are much more pressing than others, but when we look at the one she circled, we knew that we needed to really talk about it. “Why do they act like babies?” Renay heard this repeatedly. But we first must talk about a memorial. In Memory Of Renay attended a funeral for two former students’ brother. The young man had a severe disability that impacted his health and lived several years past life expectancy. Renay never worked with the person who was being memorialized, but […] - [Lessons Learned In Time](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/10/07/lessons-learned-in-time/): Renay was bouncing a few ideas around the office this week in preparation for October’s blog and then she had to go do some medical things. Unfortunately, the line the first time Renay went to get a flu shot was too long, the medical offices closed and she was not eligible to get the shot that day. So, when the next open slot happened a few weeks later, Renay went and got the shots a half hour earlier, they did stay open five minutes over. While Renay waited ninety minutes, she had the privilege of meeting a local adult with […] - [Camera Panning Up](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/09/16/camera-panning-up/): Renay was working on scheduling the other day. Processing both student and adult schedules and trying to make the complexities work of work. She was comparing student needs and personality against adult personalities and skills. While this is the real work that helps provide success in the classroom, this is also about knowing that students and paraeducators need to feel successful together to be successful. While scheduling is retooled to be more successful at that time, Renay also wants to point out that there are things in the world that need to not continue. Again, the headlines focus on yet […] - [Where the book begins](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/08/06/where-the-book-begins/): The new school year is upon us. Renay has spent the last few days unpacking from ESY and setting up projects for testing for ParaEducate. While it has been much longer than we all intended with regards to an updated publication, we are confident that we will soon see something that will be useful soon. But new school years mean a whole host of exciting expectations. Whether or not this is your first year, your second year, or your twentieth year, the world has moved into a new style and schools are responding to these changes. Okay, we know that […] - [Five Resolutions for Paraeducators in 2014-- Originally Posted Jan. 12, 2014](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/06/10/five-resolutions-for-paraeducators-in-2014-originally-posted-jan-12-2014/): Before I get too far into this week’s post, I want to piggy back onto last week’s post from Megan. When I agreed to ParaEducate (the company), it solved a few things. Firstly, it solved how to address publishing ParaEducate and it introduced something near and dear to my heart: academic modifications.  ParaEducate is going to continue providing academic modifications, providing systems for paraeducators around the country to use, and continue its book publishing for the general public. With these three veins to focus on, ParaEducate will continue to reach out to schools to help make inclusion possible for students […] - [Five Hundred Miles-- Originally Posted Feb. 8, 2021](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/06/02/five-hundred-miles-originally-posted-feb-8-2021/): One of our favorite things about February are the number of holidays that happen in February. But it is an amazingly packed month of just events that happen. It does seem endless and adding to the fact that February is a compressed month, one feels like they’re running a marathon and it is easy to get lost in. But Renay isn’t worried too much about being lost at this time of year. This time of year, according to Renay, is better spent not knowing the answers but knowing where to get an answer. Where Do I Go? It is African […] - [Through the Dark](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/06/02/through-the-dark/): We know that our May started in a whirl, guiding folks through standardized testing for a variety of students. Not just state testing, but English language testing for students who have another home language, then the district assessments. And then the world had to stop for Renay as she had to wrangle just the last few steps through another door. And now the offices of ParaEducate are a little messier just because it is May, but the challenge is not to lose the fact that there is a mess in the main offices of ParaEducate but that Renay is back. […] - [By the Sweat of My Two Hands-- Republish from December 13, 2013](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/04/05/by-the-sweat-of-my-two-hands-republish-from-december-13-2013/): We have discussed in the past what it would mean for a student with a disability to do something and that they take ownership of their own academic work. Just like their peers, they really know when they are doing something and when they are not getting their just due. When you know the project is yours, even if you cannot complete it entirely, you have some ways to make it the student’s own project. So here are some actual situations and how we made it a student’s project While the staff intervention was very obvious in all of these […] - [Together, We Can Get Some Where](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/04/05/together-we-can-get-some-where/): Renay is on Spring Break and currently looking at timelines for ParaEducate’s next round of publications.  But it is not lost on us National Paraeducator’s Day was April 3 this year. We know your daily ins and outs are unexpected and yet you rise to the occasion and for that ‘Thank you’ seems inadequate, but it is just the begining of recognizing the work that is necessary to support a range of learners in a classroom and in a school. On the Way Down We were talking about how briefly we heard paraeducators mentioned in Renay’s Master Courses. Certainly, there […] - [If the Sky We Look Upon-- Republish from June 6, 2022](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/03/11/if-the-sky-we-look-upon-republish-from-june-6-2022/): Renay is sitting writing thank you notes. It is not exactly a challenge to her, but to be thoughtful and considerate of every person, this does take some time. But it is not just about the the ‘thank you’. This academic year has been an amazing change. Every thank you between staff is genuine. Every smile and thank you from parents is true. Some come with a gift card, but the words are always there. And this year was hard fought. We thank you for staying with our shortened blog post year. We are assessing right now if this was […] - [Twelve. (Four.)](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/03/04/twelve-four/): It has been three years since Renay attended a Cal-TASH. Even online. So celebrating our Twelfth Anniversary at Cal-TASH was most definitely a celebration. We Talk Frequently About Cal-TASH and TASH Truthfully, unless you are going to a paraeducator specific conference, and they do exist, you are not going to get a lot of information about special education. Cal-TASH is for self-advocates, families of self-advocates, policy makers, teachers, related service providers, and people involved in special education. The theme for 2024 was around supportive living and housing. The housing market in general is an issue not just to people who […] - [Something Just Like This](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/02/05/something-just-like-this/): We had to dust off our archives but this time, we were much more prepared than our last blog/website shift. However, the way those saved archives work is nothing like the way our new website works. The good news, our website is now a lot more technical than it has been previously. The challenging news, the layout is something we are still working through. The best news: our website and blog are now aligned more so than ever. February Pulled in many different directions, getting to February entirely different than the pulling that happens in October. There is a need […] - [Time to Trust [Your] Instincts](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/01/16/time-to-trust-your-instincts/): Perhaps because Renay has been working in that space that occurs between the two major Fall term holidays (Thanksgiving and Winter Breaks), that this has been on our mind. Students are unsettled from trying to make that transition back to things in front of them that are a required activity and all the excitement many students associate with Winter Break—even if break is nothing more than fourteen days without school. Some students handle this space very differently than others. Some are excited and cannot be convinced that there are any other things in the world that should be focused on. […] - [It's Just A Talk...](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/2024/01/14/hello-world/): Renay has been up to her ears in work lately. So the piles around ParaEducate look a lot different than they have in the past. But Renay was ruminating on Monday about generational divides and how complex life is as a Special Education teacher, overseeing paraeducators and not always being their actual supervisor. Some districts place the principals in charge, though the schedule is driven by the needs of the students as lines in the IEP. There are also other things that come into play. More than once Renay has heard, “I wish the district would pay us what we […] ## Pages - [Links](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/links/): Websites and Resources All of these links will take you off the ParaEducate website. ParaEducate is not responsible for the maintenance or materials on these websites. Paraeducator resources: Paraprofessional Online http://paraprofessionalonline.com/ Para Center http://www.paracenter.org/ Inclusion: Kids Included Together www.kitonline.org MCIE Ollibean http://ollibean.com The Inclusive Class  http://www.theinclusiveclass.com/ Adapted Materials: Elementary NYC Public Schools http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/District75/Departments/Literacy/AdaptedBooks/default.htm Baltimore City Public Schools http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/site/Default.aspx?PageID=1446 Blogs: National Catholic Board on Full InclusionBlog Some Moore Learn Some Moore 30 Days of Autism Removing the Stumbling Block Eliminating the Box Friendship Circle Beyond the Crayon Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords Support for Special Needs Why Haven’t They Done That Yet?  https://whyhaventtheydonethatyet.wordpress.com/ Adapted Materials: […] - [About Us](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/about-us-2/): Our blog is published montly from August through May Our History What are we about? ParaEducate develops and provides resources for training educators to effectively support and include kids with disabilities in inclusive TK-12 schools. Who do we serve? Paraeducators, teachers, and administrators. What can we provide? ParaEducate is currently providing the ParaEduate book, modified instructional materials, reflections on experience in the classroom, and conference presentations. Why do we do this? We believe all students are capable of learning and deserve to be taught by trained professionals. Research has found that often students with the most severe disabilities are taught […] - [Publications](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/publications/): Published books: The Odyssey In Stick Figures Amazon.com On the Shoulders of Giants: Selected Biographies of Scientists Level 1 Amazon.com Reading For the Field Amazon.com  Just the Words: World Geography Amazon.com Just the Words: Government Amazon.com Finding It In the World: World Geography Second Edition Amazon.com Just the Words: Science Amazon.com Bard in Stick Figures Amazon.com Available on Kindle ParaEducate Amazon.com: Available on Kindle Curriculum Offered TeachersPayTeachers Individual lessons or academic material for purchase.  Conferences Attended ParaEducate has been to many conferences and has shared our work at the following events. We love meeting people and hope you attend and […] - [Privacy Policy](https://paraeducate.com/index.php/privacy-policy/): Who we are Our website address is: http://paraeducate.com. Comments When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment. Media If you upload images to […] [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)