Lesson 5: Practice and Discussion Activities

Ethical Issues Involving Paraeducators

The situations described below often face paraeducators. Using the guidelines provided in the previous lesson, carefully consider each situation. For each situation: 1) Identify the legal and ethical issues, and 2) State what action the paraeducator should take to resolve the problem or what the correct course of action should have been. You might also want to discuss these situations with your supervising teacher or school administrator and compare responses.

1. A parent of a special education student attends the same aerobics class as you, the paraeducator, do. The parent repeatedly asks about the child's progress at school.
2. As a paraeducator in the classroom, you feel that the supervising teacher exhibits poor teaching skills and that the classroom lacks organization. You don't feel comfortable discussing this with the teacher so you want to go directly to the school administration with the concerns.
3. A paraeducator has the responsibility of transporting and supervising three students doing work experience in a local home. In an effort to try to simulate some training in the classroom, the paraeducator writes an extensive task analyses of each students work. The paraeducator then plans and creates additional activities to be used for instruction.
4. The paraeducator and the teacher need time to discuss the behavior problems that Tommy is having in the classroom. The paraeducator is scheduled and paid only to be there when the children are in the classroom.
5. You work with a small group of paraeducators who always sit together during lunch. They usually discuss the problems and mistakes that their supervising teachers have made that morning.
6. You feel that some of the strategies that the teacher is using with a student are doing more harm than good. The child seems to be coming to class very upset. You've heard the teacher say that the child just needs to be tougher.
7. The teacher asks the paraeducator to contact parents about discipline problems that have occurred during the day.
8. You have become a "good buddy" to several of the high school students. They ask you if you would like to party with them.
9. The school secretary seems to be a good source of information about many of the students in the school. He seems to have considerable information on their families as well. You and the secretary discuss a specific student's problems during lunch.
10. A student who in the ESL program (English as a Second Language) is having some problems in the math class. The teacher says she thinks the student is a gang member and that if the rules are strictly enforced the student might drop out of school, eliminating the problem.
11. The teacher asks you, the paraeducator, to go to the office to obtain a student's cumulative record folder.
12. The teacher asks you to help a student with their social studies assignment. After looking at the lesson you are not sure that you know enough about the subject to help the student.
13. You are attending a church social. One of the prominent members is sitting at your table. You hear them say: "I don't think that they should be wasting all that money on programs for those handicapped children, they won't amount to anything anyway. My child is in the gifted program and there is never enough money".
14. The teacher is required to attend a professional meeting. The paraeducator is left in charge of the students rather than employing a substitute.

Compare Your Answers With Ours

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