Keyed In, Logged On, Charged Up! Paraprofessionals Connecting with 21st Century Learners
The conference started off this morning with the opening keynote address from Marilyn Likins and Gina R. Scala. Gina talked about knewly revised Knowledge & Skill Standards for Paraprofessionals from CEC (coming soon) and the importance of being involved in legislative issues. Gina challenged everyone in the audience to send a letter to a legislator once a week.
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”
~Harry S. Truman
Marilyn then reviewed the work fo the National Paraeducator Leadership Forum last summer and the top 5 paraprofessional issues that they worked on and some of the common challenges:
- Clarification of roles and responsibilities
- Lack of awareness:
- State and local adminstrators
- Legislators (state and national)
- Teachers
- Lack of leadership at national, state and local level
- Inflexiblility of higher education structures & restrictions
- Funding to support research and training
- Insufficient research
“Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is a process.
Working together is success.”
~Henry Ford
Regarding advocacy, they reminded everyone that, “You must be at the table or you will be on the menu”
Their full presentation is embedded below:
Look for more presentations later today and in the coming days!