Sick and Tired of Admin— is this normal?
This is my first year as a SPED para at an elementary school. There’s a lot of issues I have with my administration, and I want to quit because of them.
The principal doesn’t know any of the paras’ names. She called one of the paras, “Paige”. Paige quit last year.
They won’t let us view student IEPs. So I have no idea what behaviors or goals I am trying to work on.
They change what students we work with about every month. They don’t consult with the homeroom teachers or the case managers, so a lot of the kids have regressed in skills due to the constant changing.
We didn’t get one message of gratitude for para appreciation day.
I was throwing up blood for 2 weeks and was in the ER. I had to call out. When I came back, admin reprimanded me for being gone too long saying “the students relay on you”. Not once was I asked how I was feeling.
The dean walks around the school on a rolling cart and micromanages you. I took a second grader for a 5 minute break and she watched me the whole time. When I brought him back to his room, I got an email about 10 minutes later telling me I didn’t do the break correctly.l
Another para asked for trauma-response training for one of our third graders. Admin sent her a 10 minute Youtube video on tips.
4 paras have quit within a month of starting. One of them checked herself into the inpatient care for mental health purposes.
They give out no consequences. We have a second grader who’s infamous in our school for being physical. Long story short: his parents don’t want him to have support services, so during recess, the recess staff are in charge of him. One day he choked a kid, while pinching their nose, while screaming “I’m going to kill you”. The kid who was injured was sent home for trauma, and the other? he was sent to admin- they sent him back to class with a snack 15 minutes later.
I love the kids at this elementary school, and the teachers I work with are great and make me feel appreciated. But everything else is so draining.