From Tish Olshefski at AFT:
The AFT recently surveyed paraprofessionals on the issue of assignments post-NCLB. We specifically tried to determine if paraprofessionals are ever assigned to work without being under the direction of a teacher as outlined in NCLB. A secondary issue is whether paraprofessionals are assigned to work as substitutes. This is a follow-up to a similar survey we first conducted in 2001. While the incident of paraprofessionals working as substitutes has lessened in that time, there are still a fair number of paraprofessionals working as substitutes.