Organizing for Effective Paraprofessional Services in Special Education: A Multilingual/Multiethnic Instructional Service Team Model

Abstract

A challenge for the instruction of linguistically diverse exceptional students is the need for identifying individuals who can provide links between the students' home and the school. Individuals fluent in the students' home language and familiar with their culture can play important roles in the prereferral process and in staffing and intervention. Finding certificated bilingual/bicultural personnel in the many languages represented by exceptional students in schools remains difficult and, too often, support personnel are not sufficiently prepared to represent special education to their respective communities. This paper explores important elements necessary to develop a stable, well-prepared itinerant instructional team that includes paraprofessionals working collaboratively with, and under the direct instructional supervision of, a certified special education teacher. Such a team can provide a vehicle by which districts with limited bilingual/bicultural personnel can maximize their resources, integrate services, and more effectively serve a great number of linguistically diverse students.