Austin Majors

PURPOSE/ BACKGROUND

The 2018 Legislature passed into law SSB 6388 revising requirements for paraeducator employment in Washington State. In addition, the Legislature requested school districts report the number of paraeducators who meet these requirements.

By October 1, 2018, a school district that does not receive funding under Title I of the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 must report to the Paraeducator Board with the following information about instructional paraeducators hired by the school district for the 2018–19  school year, as of September 1, 2018: The total number of instructional paraeducators and the number who meet the minimum employment requirements provided in RCW 28A.413.040.

An instructional paraeducator is defined (WAC 179-01-020) as:

A classified public school or school district employee who works under the supervision of a certificated or licensed staff member, from grades kindergarten to grade 12, to support and assist in providing instructional and other services to students and their families, including library assistants, and excluding bus monitors, lunchroom aides, and community service aides.

Districts are advised to review the paraeducator minimum employment requirement flyer.

In addition, as a reminder, when school districts report to Personnel Reporting (S-275) on their instructional paraeducators, they must use Duty Code 91 and Activity Code 27.

REPORTING

For the purposes of this request by the Legislature, districts must report the number of paraeducators in their school district by using the following online survey. Reports must be submitted by October 1, 2018.

INFORMATION AND ASSISTANCE

For questions regarding this bulletin, please contact Jack Busbee, Program Manager, at 360-725-6377 or email jack.busbee@k12.wa.us. The PESB main number is 360-725-6275.

This bulletin is also available on the PESB News page of the PESB website.

Alexandra Manuel
Executive Director
Professional Educator Standards Board

CR: jb

PESB has published a new webpage about clock hours for National Board certification and National Board renewal! The WAC around this area was recently updated: WAC 181-85-033 (PDF)

For policy questions around clock hours for National Board certification or renewal, please contact maren.johnson@k12.wa.us

The Paraeducator Board sends out a bi-monthly email newsletter updating subscribers on Board news, which you can subscribe to at the bottom of this page.

To view the most recent publication, please follow this link to read the July newsletter.

The Washington State Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) will be conducting a review of clock hour policy this upcoming school year. In preparation for this work, we are gathering input from a wide variety of stakeholders.

We want to know what issues in clock hour policy our stakeholders care about. The results of this survey will be used to inform the upcoming policy review. We appreciate your input.

We welcome you to complete our online survey on clock hour policy, and to share this survey with your networks. The survey will be open until August 31.

Take our clock hour survey.