Update on Requirements for Paraprofessionals and the PA Credential of Competency: A Webinar for Administrators JENNIFER GOLDBLOOM: Hello and welcome to this update on requirements for paraprofessionals and the Pennsylvania Credential of Competency. The materials for this webinar are available on the PaTTAN website at www.pattan.net. Click on paraeducators and then click on publications and you will be able to find a variety of the documents that we will be talking about today. My name is Jennifer Goldbloom and I am a consultant here at PaTTAN - King of Prussia and I m the presenter for today s session. The objective for the session is to provide you an overview of what the term qualify means for paraprofessionals in Pennsylvania. There has been some confusion about this issue since IDEA04 came out with a mandate that paraprofessionals that work with students in special education need to meet state standards of quality. In response to this our new Chapter 14 State Special Education Regulations have named specific qualifications for paraprofessionals in Pennsylvania to deem them qualified and that s what we re going to be talking about in this session. In addition, we ll be talking about the Pennsylvania Credential of Competency as one method that can be used to verify competency and also a variety of training options available for paraprofessionals across the state. PaTTAN s mission is to work in partnership with families and local education agencies to support programs and services to improve student learning and achievement and you see this slide on all of our PaTTAN sponsored trainings. In addition, you see this slide that refers to Pennsylvania Department of Education s commitment to a least restrictive environment. Our goal for each child is to ensure that IEP teams begin with the general education setting with the use of supplementary aids and services first before considering a more restrictive placement for a student who has disabilities. The agenda for today is that we are going to be discussing regulations regarding paraprofessionals in the state of Pennsylvania, paraprofessionals specifically who work with students with disabilities. We re going to be talking about the credential of competency that s available and a variety of training options for paraprofessionals across the state. When No Child Left Behind was authorized it required paraprofessionals working in programs that were funded through Title I monies to be qualified and they had certain regulations relating to those qualifications. Then, when IDEA 2004 was enacted there were regulations regarding special education paraprofessionals and regulations relating to them. In response to the IDEA enactment the Pennsylvania State Board of Education decided to include standards for special education paraprofessionals in the state regulations and those became effective July 1, 2008, and that s what we re going to be looking at. Chapter 14 requirements which encompass the IDEA04 requirements defines paraprofessionals and in this presentation you may hear me use the word paraeducator and you may also hear me use the word paraprofessional. When we were looking at paraeducator and paraprofessional issues back at the beginning of 2000 and 2001 we started using the term paraeducator because that was a word that was being used across the country to be an umbrella term for the role of paraeducators that might come under different names such as teacher assistants, teacher aids, educational assistant, those kinds of things, job coach. We were using the term paraeducator and some of our documents still use that term paraeducator. When IDEA04 was enacted they used the term paraprofessional in their regulations, so when we are updating our paperwork and talking about regulations we are trying to use the word
paraprofessional instead of paraeducator, but the two terms are interchangeable. As far as the word paraprofessional in Pennsylvania there are two different types of paraprofessionals that are included in the Chapter 14 requirements. So, we define instructional paraprofessional and personal care assistant, and we re going to be talking about that. We re going to be looking at the requirements related to instructional paraprofessionals, qualifications for education and qualification for inservice development. Then we re going to be looking at personal care aides and their requirements around professional development and staff development. Whether it s a paraprofessional who is working in general education, they may be falling under the Title I requirement or whether it s a paraprofessional who is working specifically with students with disabilities; there are very similar requirements for educational attainment. So, let s look at NCLB and for No Child Left Behind each LEA needs to ensure that all paraprofessionals hired after 2002 and working in a program supported with Title I funds shall have completed at least two years of study at an institution of higher education or obtained an Associates Degree or higher or met a rigorous standard of quality and can demonstrate through a formal state or local academic assessment. In addition, there is twenty hours of staff development required to meet that requirement on a yearly basis. But to reach qualified status or highly qualified status anyone working under Title I funds, that s either working in a classroom that is specifically is Title I funded or in a school that is all Title I funded. They have to meet those requirements. For instructional paraprofessionals working with students with disabilities there are very similar requirements. They need to meet one of the following qualifications effective this coming July 1, 2010, they have to have completed at least two years of postsecondary study and for the NCLB or the Chapter 14 requirement that equates to about 48 credits of college coursework or possess an Associates Degree or higher and there is no specification for either of those at the NCLB or the Chapter 14 as to what type of Associates Degree, it doesn t specify. It can be education related or can be English or engineering. It doesn t have to be anything relating to education, as long as they possess an Associated Degree or higher. Or, if a paraprofessional has not met number one or number two they can meet a rigorous standard of quality as demonstrated through a state or local assessment. We re going to talk about the Credential of Competency as the recommended state or local assessment that can be used by LEAs or that number three option. Let s look at the definition of an instructional paraprofessional versus a personal care assistant. In this slide, Chapter 14 defines an instructional paraprofessional. It clearly states that an instructional paraprofessional works under the direction of a certified staff member to support and assist in providing instructional programs and services. Chapter 14 focuses on the job description of the individual rather than the title used by the LEA; meaning it s the work that the person is doing that really determines whether they fit under instructional paraprofessional or whether they fit under personal care assistant. So, looking at that, Chapter 14 gives examples of the kinds of support an assistant and instructional paraprofessional might offer, so this could be one to one services, it could be group review of material that was taught previously by the teacher, it could be classroom management; it could be the implementation of positive behavior support plans. So, they can be doing a variety of instructional or support type work too alongside the certified staff member. It also talks about where the services might be provided and they can be provided in a special ed. setting, a general ed. setting, or other instructional setting as provided in the student s IEPs. So, this could be out on a job site, a communitybased setting that could still be instructional paraprofessional. So, whether the title of the person at the LEA is teacher assistant, job coach, educational assistant, teacher s aide, it s the work that is related to
support and assistance to instruction and classroom management and social skills, those kinds of things that would put them in that category. So, instructional paraprofessionals working with student who have disabilities effective July 1, 2010 must have completed at least two years of postsecondary study, so that s about 48 credits or possess an Associates Degree or higher, not specified as to what content area, or meet a rigorous standard quality as demonstrated through a state or local assessment. Note that only one of the three is required. If a person comes to you or is working for an LEA already and they ve completed two years of postsecondary study, then they already meet that qualification. They do not have to get anything further to meet the state s requirement, or if they have an Associates Degree they don t need to have a state or local assessment. They already have met the state s requirement. There s guidance from the Pennsylvania Department of Education Bureau of Special Education that was provided through a pen link if you have further questions. In addition, there is an FAQ on the paraeducator section of the PaTTAN website if you click under publications section. In addition to the educational requirement that gets the paraprofessional up to meeting qualified status there s now a requirement that to maintain that qualified status a paraprofessional needs to continue staff development. So, beginning with the 08-09 school year each year paraprofessionals need to provide evidence that they receive twenty hours of staff development activities related to their assignment. So, each school entity will be responsible for developing and maintaining a system that tracks the paraprofessional staff development beginning with the 08-09 school year and each school year thereafter. Additionally, the paraprofessional is the one who is responsible for showing documentation of the twenty hours to the employing public entity each year. So, a paraprofessional needs to track the hours that they are getting and be able to prove that to their employer and then the LEA needs to be able to show, when they are asked for it, they need to figure out a way to track and maintain that data so that they can show that when they re asked for it. Moving on to personal care assistants; a personal care assistant provides one to one support and assistance to a student including support and assistance in the use of medical equipment such as augmentative communication devices, activities of daily living. They may be working with monitoring the student s health or behavior. They may provide support to more than one student, but not more than one student at the same time. So, a personal care assistant is providing service one to one to a student and it s not instructional in nature, it s to support the student s communication, daily living, health or behavior. Beginning with the 08-09 school year each PCA must provide evidence of 20 hours of staff development related to their assignment and this may include training required by the school-based access program. It can also include things like CPR training or first aid, but should not include training related to paperwork requirements for the job. So, the PCA needs to also have twenty hours of staff development each year, but they do not have to meet the educational requirements that instructional paraprofessionals need to meet. For this twenty hours, the school entity also needs to be responsible for developing and maintaining a system to track the paraprofessional staff development beginning with 08-09 school year and each year thereafter and the paraprofessional needs to be responsible for tracking their own twenty hours each year and being able to provide that to their employer each year. So, we have the first method that paraprofessionals can become qualified and that is two years of postsecondary study or 48 credits or a paraprofessional can have an Associates Degree or higher. But, what if they don t have either of those and they need to meet that third option of meeting a rigorous standard of quality as evidenced through a state or local assessment. Well, one way to do that is to have the paraprofessional work through the Credential of Competency checklist activities
that we re going to talk about and with their supervisor or supervisor s designee and they make application to the state to obtain the credential of competency. So, this is one way that paraprofessionals can prove that they have met that qualification. The Pennsylvania Department of Education is endorsing this as a recommended way for that third option. We have a folder that s available and you can get it one of two ways, you can call any of the PaTTAN offices and order the folders and the folder, that s the front of it that you re looking at right now, Knowledge and Skill Development for Special Education Paraprofessionals in Pennsylvania, or you can go on the PaTTAN website and go under publications and order as many as you need. Why would you order the folder? The folder is a place to have all of the documents that a paraprofessional needs all in one place and so on the back of the folder are the actual regulations relating to instructional paraprofessionals and PCAs and the deadlines and what they need to meet each year, and on the inside of the folder we have the Credential of Competency Document Checklist that we re going to go through. There is also a Staff Development Tracking Log that a paraprofessional could use. It s just a tool for them to use. It s not a required form, but it s one way that a paraprofessional could track their yearly activities. There s an FAQ in there also that s from the website that helps answer any questions that the supervisor may have or the paraprofessional may have as they go. So, that is available through calling your local PaTTAN office or ordering it through the website. So, let s go through what the document is all about. The Special Education Paraprofessional Credential of Competency is available through the Pennsylvania Department of Education Bureau of Special Education. It is based on the performance standards for special education paraprofessionals developed by the Council for Exceptional Children. The Council for Exceptional Children identified knowledge and skill areas that correspond to each of the ten standards that are listed that we ve included in the Credential of Competency. So the Bureau of Special Education Department of Ed. is endorsing the use of these ten performance-based standards and their corresponding required knowledge and skills. These define the basic content for the initial preparation and practice of special education paraprofessionals. Once a special education paraprofessional has completed the competency assessment checklist, all of the ten standards and all of the knowledge and skill areas under each standard and the school district IU or MAWA administrator has attested to the fact that the paraprofessional has met those skills then the paraprofessional submits the document to the state and the mailing information is on the front of the document, and we re going to show you that in a minute. The Competency Assessment Checklist is part of the document and that s the actual document that is used to verify that the paraprofessional has met each one of those knowledge and skill competencies required to get the credential. Then the supervisor needs to verify achievement of each of those items on the checklist by dating and signing and then once it s all completed the paraprofessional can send it in to the address, and they should probably keep a copy for themselves. We ask that the documents be completed in blue ink so that the state knows that it s getting the original version of the document. Here is the list of the first five Standards for Practice that are listed in the document. Again, these are based on what CEC had developed as basic knowledge areas. 1. Foundations of Special Ed. 2. Development of Characteristics of Learners. 3. Individual Learning Differences. 4. Instructional Strategies. 5. Learning Environments and Social Interactions. Here are the next five: 1. Language. 2. Instructional Planning. 3. Assessment. 4. Professional and Ethical Practice. 5. Collaboration. Each one of these standards has its own page in the checklist and the knowledge and skill areas are listed under that standard on each separate page. For each standard page there are knowledge and skill areas listed. There is the method
that was used to achieve that competency, whether it was a class that was attended, whether there was an interview, whether the paraprofessional demonstrated that skill or knowledge area within their daily work, or whether they developed a portfolio of some sort of documentation relating to that skill. Each knowledge and skill level has what level was achieved; entry, intermediate, or advanced for each competency, and then for each and every item there s a date that the item was achieved and the supervisor needs to attest to that. When we say the supervisor it can be the paraprofessional s immediate supervisor, it could be the principal at a school, it could be the director of the preschool, or it could be the supervisor s designee, like it could be the paraprofessional s partnered teacher. That needs to be determined at the LEA level. The knowledge and skill areas in this competency assessment checklist are broad enough and flexible enough to meet the needs of any particular agency's specific competency. So, it can be tailored, whether it s an early intervention class, whether it s a school that s for deaf and hard of hearing or whether it s a school age building or a voc ed. class, this competency assessment checklist can be tailored and can be seen through the lens of a particular work environment, and that is up to the particular supervisor who is working with the paraprofessional. So, here is a look at one page of the document. So, the is standard number five that you see here and you see that the employees name and location where they work and then you see a couple of a bunch of boxes. So, we re going to go through the document. I m going bring that up now and show you the document, because I think it will be easier to get a better idea. Here is the first page of the Credential of Competency for Special Education Paraeducators, (note the word paraeducators), Documentation of Special Education Paraeducators Competence and Standard Space Knowledge and Skills. That is a mouthful. Alright. So, when we developed this at the beginning of around 2002, that was the title that was deemed appropriate. I want to make sure that you can find it when you go on the PaTTAN website. So, you would go onto www.pattan.net, click the paraeducators section and then once you get on the paraeducator page scroll down on the left hand scroll bar you see the publication section, click on publications and you should be able to find this document under credential checklist or Credential of Competency. So, on the first page you have here a little bit about the regulations to remind you what the regulations are and the deadlines and then here on the first page is the address where the completed checklist document needs to be sent. It needs to be sent to this address on the screen and if there are any changes you will see the latest version on the web. On the second page you see the list of the 10 standards and little bit of background about CEC and then on the third page begins the directions for completing the document. It explains somewhat clearly what the four options are for deciding how a knowledge and skill area was obtained, whether it was class, interview, demonstration, or portfolio and we re going to go into that a little more detail. It gives you directions on how to fill each one of the blocks in on the page. Then there s an example. So, here, in this example, Foundations of Special Education Standard Number One-- here is purposes of programs for individuals with exceptional learning needs. This person met this knowledge area at the intermediate level. This when they were actually talking about this particular knowledge and skill area with Joseph Reynolds, the supervisor on August 24, 2003 and then the method of how this person, Mary Smith, how she met that knowledge area. So, she took a class, C stands for class, and if you follow the arrow up it gives you the options; class, interview, demonstration, or portfolio. The second knowledge area, Basic Educational Terminology, Mary actually developed a portfolio and discussed it with her supervisor, Joseph Reynolds. So, a paraprofessional can meet these knowledge and skill areas using any combination of attending
classes, interviewing with the supervisor, demonstrating their work within their work setting or developing a portfolio. So, it doesn t have to be all one way. And then, this next page, page five is the part that begins the document that should be sent to the state when the document is finished. So, this is the first page, Standards for Practice Competency Assessment Checklist, the paraprofessionals sign--fills in their name, the last six digits of their social security number, their job title, and the rest of this demographic information that s on this page. This should all be filled in with blue ink. Here is following all ten pages of standards. Each standard has its own page. They all look the same except the knowledge and skill areas are a little bit different. When the paraprofessional is preparing to send this into the state they should only send the ten pages with the checklist standards and that first demographics page. They should not send in all of the other documentation that they may have discussed with their supervisor. We do not need to see their certificates of attendance at different classes. We do not need to see transcripts. We do not need to see evidence of performance portfolio work. We don t want to see any of that. That just is extraneous information that will not help the reviewer when trying to get through the review process. So, please just have the paraprofessionals send in the demographics page and the ten standards pages signed by the supervisor or designee. That is really very important. Okay, so each knowledge and skill area can be achieved at the entry, intermediate or advanced level. In order to qualify for the paraprofessional credential, paraprofessionals must reach at least the entry level for each knowledge and skill area, but they do not need to reach any higher level. To achieve a higher level, that s fine and that just lets someone looking at that evidence know that they have a higher level, but it s not necessary. If the credential has entry at all the knowledge and skill areas and entry was the level for all those and its submitted to the state and the paraprofessional has received their credential there is no need to reapply if the paraprofessional then gets a higher level. Once they have the credential there is no expiration date and there is no expectation to get a higher level. This just gives options to the supervisor and the paraprofessional for filling out that particular column. So, as the paraprofessional begins the process of working toward the credential, it s recommended that he or she meet with a supervisor to discuss a plan to meet the requirements of achieving the competencies. We re going to look at that. We should be thinking about how are we going to work through this? Are you going to attend most of the classes? Do you think you might, you know you ve been working here for fifteen years. I ve been working with you all that time, do you think that we can interview for many of these options because I know how you work, I ve seen you in your daily work. I know how you, you know, I know what your skills and knowledge area are. So, achieving the competencies, I ve said this before, but they may be achieved through one of four methods. Class inservice trainings, interviewing with the supervisor, having the supervisor observe their work, or they can demonstrate their work, or developing a portfolio of work documents that they ve been using in their daily work. And again, a paraprofessional can use any combination of these four. However, with class and inservice training it s really not possible to get all of the knowledge and skill areas covered just by attending a class because some of the items are skills that really need to be demonstrated within ones work. So, lets look at the methods specifically and how one might apply that entry, intermediate and advanced idea to each option. So, for the class or inservice method, entry level would mean that the paraprofessional successfully completed a training or an inservice course by staying for the entire session and fulfilling whatever requirements were put forth for the class. Intermediate might mean having drafted a plan of action to show how the paraprofessional might use what was learned in the classroom and then advanced might mean that the
action plan was actually implemented in the classroom and was reviewed with the supervisor. For an interview, this method of achieving a competency, the paraprofessional will schedule a meeting and should sit down with the supervisor to discuss the knowledge and skill areas that the paraprofessional is currently working toward with the intent of showing that he or she has gained adequate knowledge to achieve entry, intermediate, or advanced level in those areas. So, the supervisor would then need to think about what questions they would want to ask relating to those knowledge and skill areas in order to conduct an interview. So, entry level achievement would mean that the paraprofessional can provide responses to the supervisor s questions with probably little evidence of use of the skill or knowledge in the classroom. So, they may have some knowledge about it, but maybe they have not really applied it in their work. Intermediate would be that the paraprofessional can describe application of that knowledge or skill area in their job situation and advanced would be that the paraprofessional can describe how they applied that knowledge and skill in their work and perhaps how they adapted it or how that skill could be adapted to create and meet student s needs in new ways. Classroom observation; in many cases the classroom observations would be prearranged by the paraprofessional with the special ed. supervisor or it s designee. However, it may be that the supervisor has observed the paraprofessional enough in their work that through that interview they can actually say, well you know, I ve seen you do this in your work. So, the supervisor should in, either case, meet and discuss the competencies after the observation or relating to the knowledge and skills that are being observed. You can see that for entry the paraprofessional performs job duties using basic knowledge and skills requiring some coaching possibly from the certified teacher or the related services person to apply the particular knowledge or skill in their job situation. And then, going on to advanced, the paraprofessional consistently applies that knowledge and skill and they demonstrate it consistently and can adapt the knowledge and skill to meet needs throughout the day or throughout the educational situation. Developing a portfolio; this is where the paraprofessional and the supervisor would come to an understanding ahead of time, they would predetermine what knowledge and skill areas might lend themselves to having the paraprofessional develop a portfolio and that means that they re actually coming up with documents, forms or products related to their work. At the entry level, the products would meet the minimum of the predetermined requirements reflecting basic understanding of the knowledge and skill competency with limited application and at the advanced level the products might have exceeded the predetermined requirement and include examples of how the paraprofessional may have applied or adapted the knowledge or the product to evidence a clear and thorough knowledge and skill relating to that competency. Examples of that might be data collection tools that the paraprofessional has used to collect data for teachers. Perhaps they have study guides or other classroom materials that the paraprofessional uses to assist student organize information. Maybe they even completed at research project and provide a summary for the supervisor. Those types of things might lend themselves to portfolio. As you can see we have left it flexible and broad enough to meet the needs of various educational settings. Remember, not all the skill and knowledge areas can be achieved by attending classes, some need to be demonstrated within the work setting, and on the screen here are some examples of skill areas. For example, use the strategies, equipment, materials, and technologies as directed to accomplish instructional objectives. It s really hard to verify that a paraprofessional has met that even at an entry level by just attending a class. So, you see what we re talking about here. So, it s also very important that the paraprofessional send in all copies stapled together, completed in blue ink
and with no extraneous paperwork. That s very important. There are about 19,000 paraprofessionals across the state of Pennsylvania. That s about the latest numbers we have. That s an approximate. We initially introduced the Credential of Competency in August, 2003 and we had a training related to that provided to paraprofessionals and also to supervisors, so we have some data to share with you relating to how many credentials we have been able to issue so far. So, we ve already credentialed over 5,800 paraprofessionals as of December, 2009. When the process began, the credential system was purely voluntary. It s still voluntary as far as whether you chose to use the credential as your method of becoming qualified, but now, of course we have the new requirements through NCLB and through IDEA and Chapter 14 for qualifications of competency. So, we started out a little bit slow, so between November, 2003 and March, 2007 we actually credentialed about 2,046 paraprofessionals and then just in this past year from April, 2009 to December, 2009 we credentialed 2,293 paraprofessionals. So, that s pretty amazing, so we know that there s going to be a push between now and July 1, 2010 for the remainder of the paraprofessionals who do not meet the first two options, either an Associates Degree or two years postsecondary study that they re going to be looking for a way to verify that they meet the qualified status. So, my suggestion, since it takes about twelve weeks turnaround time, even if the application that the paraprofessional is putting in is correct and all is correct, it still takes about twelve weeks. So, we want to make sure that people are giving enough time ahead of time if they re trying to meet the July 1st deadline; you really want to be thinking about getting out ahead of this. Okay, so the last thing we want to talk about today, actually there s two more things. The training plan what we have available for folks training wise and what materials we have available to you as an LEA to provide training. So, currently we have a system in place where we have been providing each year since 2003 we have been providing after school video conference series and we have trained on multitude of topics, everything from classroom management behavior topics to reading and math instruction, progress monitoring, roles and responsibilities, confidentiality issues, ethics, how to be a team member, communication, really a wide variety of topics. We have done disability-specific trainings also. We also have had two full days of training available each summer in August and we will have that this year coming up, August 11th-12th, 2010 we ll have two full days of training. We have had intermittent trainings available for supervisors to keep you up-to-date on what the regulations are, what your responsibilities may be and how you can support paraprofessionals working in the schools. We have also added an online course and we started that about a year-and-a-half ago as far as being available online. What we did is the 07-08 and 08-09 after school video conference series were aligned directly to the standards, so we had ten after school video conferences, each one related to the knowledge and skills listed under each standard. So, we translated those into an online course so that we would not have to keep repeating the same material over and over again, we would have that basic material available to any paraprofessional who wants it at their convenience and then lets us move on to more advanced topics and more content-based topics. So, those are some training options that are available and I m just going to give you a quick look at the online course to see that if paraprofessionals, maybe they have already met the qualified status but they re looking for some hours for their inservice training, this is one option that they can use for getting their inservice training if they have not already viewed these sessions. Paraprofessionals can register for these online by going to the PaTTAN website, clicking on paraeducators and clicking on the blue box and there s an item there that says online courses and they can register and attend these courses and actually get certificate of attendance. I m going to show you
what these look like. Here s the homepage on the web of what the courses look like and the paraprofessional can take one or all of them. They re all separate standalone courses. They re somewhere between an one and a half hours and two hours each and when a paraprofessional clicks on that they would log in and they would see what you re viewing here on the screen the video portion along with the synchronized Power Point slides as well as a closed caption transcript of what s being said on the video. In addition, the materials that they need to view the session and work through the activities is available right here for them to download right here in this supplemental download materials. They have the option of going to any jump spot if they had to stop viewing and want to come back and view it again or jump in at any point they can jump in at different points in the Power Point and it will come up on the screen and they ll be right back where they left off. Okay. They can also click on certificates to view how many minutes they ve watched each standard and whether they qualified for a certificate of attendance and we plan on putting an evaluation in for each of these. We re working on that so in the future they ll need to take a quiz in order to get the certificate of attendance. Okay, so that s the online course. We ll go back to the Power Point. Here we go. So, the next thing I want to talk about is training materials that are available for your use. So, we have the training courses that we provide through PaTTAN and that s one option that a paraprofessional can take advantage of free when they re available. After school video conferences are about two hours each, they usually provide about ten hours of inservice training. The summer trainings are usually two days and that provides another ten hours of training time available for paraprofessionals. Paraprofessionals can take advantage of inservice days at their home site, at their LEA or community college opportunities. However, if you are looking to get ideas of what trainings you could provide, if you re looking to find a place where you can use materials that are already developed, we have placed all of our materials on the PaTTAN website so that you can access them, so schools, IUs, LEAs can access all of our materials, the Power Point slides to download and print out for the handout packets, the Power Point slides with the notes so that the trainer can actually read what our intention was and it s just, you know, almost scripted, and then the activity packets, the handout packets. So, they re there for your use. They re there for you to customize as you like and you know if you have any questions you can always ask us. We want to make sure that you have options available to you, if you re saying, gosh you know we d like to provide trainings for our paraprofessionals but we just don t know where to go for training, you can go on the PaTTAN website and browse through our materials, we have plenty of materials. The best thing you can do is when you get onto the site, you go to pattan.net, click on paraeducators, click on training materials. When you scroll through and find a topic that you like, do a right click save as to your desktop and then the Power Points and the materials will open up and you can utilized them anyway that you like. So, we want to make you aware that those materials are available. So, that s about what I had today to offer to you. We want to reiterate that the requirements for qualified paraprofessionals in the state of P.A. are upcoming; they will need to meet those requirements by July 1, 2010. There are the three options that paraprofessionals can meet. If they meet one of the options they do not need to meet any of the other options, so if they have 48 credits of college they don t need to have an Associates Degree, they do not need to get the credential. If they do not meet options one or two they can work toward the Credential of Competency as the third option and we do recommend that they do that. So, if you have any questions you are certainly more that welcome to contact me. Again, I m Jen Goldbloom. You can shoot me an e-mail or you can give me a phone call at 610 878 7238. Or you can contact Monica an we'll be
happy to answer any of the questions that you have. And I wish you good luck, and thank you for attending today's webinar.