TEACHER ASSISTANTS
It is the policy of the Tannehill Board of Education that teacher assistants are support employees entitled to due process prior to nonrenewal or termination of employment. Applicants must possess the required level of requisite skills as prescribed in the appropriate State Department of Education regulation except that a teacher's assistant or a volunteer will be used for each class of kindergarten through second grade which has more than 20 students and in which twenty percent of the students are eligible to participate in the National Child Nutrition Act.
Teacher assistants are paraprofessionals within the school district. All paraprofessionals must have earned a high school diploma or its equivalent. Paraprofessionals hired after January 7, 2002, to work with identified Title I students must have completed at least two years of study at an institution of higher education; obtained at least an associate's degree; or met a rigorous standard of quality and can demonstrate through a formal state or local academic assessment the knowledge of and ability to assist in the instruction of reading, writing, or mathematics or the instruction of readiness of these subjects. Paraprofessionals working with identified Title I students who were hired before January 8, 2002, have until the end of the 2005-2006 school year to meet these standards. The district will not hire Title I paraprofessionals who do not meet these standards. If the district [is/becomes] a school-wide Title I school district, all paraprofessionals in the district must meet these standards.
Exception to these requirements may be made with regard to paraprofessionals who act as translators or who coordinate parent involvement activities.
The superintendent and/or staff development committee shall develop an appropriate in-service training program for teacher assistants.
Teacher assistants are employed so that the professional teachers may direct their energies to the students’ education. The basic objectives for the use of teacher assistants are:
1. To make it possible for teachers to use more variety in structuring classroom activities which will result in more meaningful education for children and youth.
2. To enable the teacher to do more creative teaching, and to use a greater variety of instructional media.
3. To enable the teacher to develop effective programs focusing upon the individual needs of each student.
4. To provide increased time for individualizing instruction, evaluating learning situations, student counseling and guidance for other instructional activities that will improve educational opportunities for boys and girls.
5. To relieve teachers of the numerous semi- and non-professional tasks which have become cumulative and which have come to consume a disproportionate amount of the teacher’s time and energies.
The principal and supervising teacher are jointly responsible for making final decisions related to the duties and responsibilities to be assigned to an assistant. Assistants are not to discipline children. Classroom discipline shall be left to the certified teacher or building principal.
TEACHER ASSISTANTS (Cont.)
Teacher assistants will only be used to perform, or assist a classroom teacher to perform, the following duties:
* Hallroom duty
* Bus duty
* Playground duty
* Lunchroom duty
* Extracurricular activities involving school functions
* Other noninstructional duties as the superintendent may prescribe
The duties of teacher assistants may be further restricted or regulated by program requirements of the funding plan under which they are employed:
1. Title I funds provide assistants for the Remedial Reading Program.
2. Title VII funds provide assistants for Indian students.
3. Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) funds provide assistants for mainstreamed students with certain specific handicaps that require frequent or constant attention.
REFERENCE: 70 O.S. §6-127, §18-113.1, et seq.
P. L. 107-110, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
THIS POLICY REQUIRED BY THE
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT.
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