Before You Choose Paraprofessional PD, Ask These Six Questions
The beginning of the school year often brings professional development needs to the surface. Maybe several staff members are new to the role. Maybe responsibilities have shifted, or teachers and administrators are noticing places where additional training and support would be helpful. Whatever prompts the conversation, it’s natural to start by asking what the training for paraprofessionals should cover.
And there are plenty of worthwhile topics to choose from—behavior support, small-group instruction, roles and responsibilities, IEPs and 504s, instructional strategies, and more.
But over the years, we’ve learned that choosing the content is only part of planning professional learning. Some equally important decisions happen around the content: When will staff have time to participate? Who will facilitate? How will paraprofessionals have a voice in the process? What happens after the training? And can the learning be sustained across the year?
Good content matters. So do the conditions around it.
Before choosing the topics, here are six questions school, district, and ESD leaders can use to think about the conditions for learning. These questions are drawn from Cultivate’s District Readiness Tool which helps teams examine the conditions surrounding paraprofessional professional learning.
1. Where will paraprofessional PD fit?
Start with what already exists. Does your school or district have professional learning communities, mentorship structures, onboarding, classroom team meetings, or protected professional development time? Could paraprofessional learning fit into one of those structures rather than becoming one more thing staff have to squeeze in?
This is also a question of ownership. Someone needs enough time and capacity to coordinate the work, communicate with staff, gather feedback, and keep things moving.
In a regional effort, the answer may be different from one district to another. One school may already have an instructional coach who could facilitate. A small or rural district may have no one positioned to take that on.
Readiness doesn't require every school to have the same structure. It does require knowing what capacity already exists—and where additional support is needed.
2. When will staff actually have time to learn?
This question deserves to come early. We regularly hear some version of: “There is no time when staff are paid to be here and students aren't here.”
Paraprofessionals should not have to absorb required professional learning into unpaid time. Adding training to an already-full schedule can create frustration before anyone gets to the content, and there isn't one scheduling model that works everywhere.
Early Childhood CARES has used Cultivate for three years and experimented with incorporating learning into onboarding, classroom team meetings, and protected PD time. Classroom Program Coordinator Natalya McComas describes spreading the learning across the year, giving staff opportunities to reflect, try strategies, and revisit topics over time.
The practical question is not simply, “Where can we squeeze in a training?”
Where can we create time for people to actually learn?
You may not have an ideal answer yet. Naming the constraint gives you something concrete to plan around.
3. Who will facilitate and what support will they need?
Access to good materials does not automatically make someone comfortable facilitating adult learning. A facilitator needs to know where the session is headed, prepare for the group, invite participants' expertise, keep discussion connected to the learning objectives, and help people consider what the ideas look like in practice.
That distinction matters when considering Train-the-Trainer or locally facilitated professional development. Some districts already have an instructional coach, teacher leader, administrator, or other staff member who is well positioned to facilitate. Others need outside facilitation or more support developing local capacity.
Ask:
Who could lead this learning?
Do they have time to prepare?
Are they comfortable facilitating discussion rather than primarily presenting?
What materials, coaching, or ongoing support would help?
Train-the-Trainer can build local capacity. It shouldn't simply transfer the work of creating and sustaining PD onto another busy educator.
4. How will paraprofessionals help shape what they learn?
Paraprofessionals know a great deal about the students, classrooms, routines, relationships, and challenges they encounter every day. That expertise belongs in professional learning. Before building a scope and sequence, talk with staff about where they feel confident, where roles or expectations are unclear, and what situations they are navigating regularly. Ask what they would like more opportunity to learn about, practice, or discuss.
Those conversations shouldn't happen only at the beginning of the year. Needs in September may not be the same as needs in February, and the experiences staff have throughout the year can help identify where additional learning or discussion would be useful.
Staff voice is particularly important when a team includes paraprofessionals with different levels of experience. Experienced staff may not need every topic introduced as if it were new, but revisiting a familiar topic can still be worthwhile when they have opportunities to examine their current practice and hear how colleagues approach similar situations. At the same time, newer paraprofessionals benefit from hearing how more experienced colleagues apply those practices with actual students in actual settings.
Professional learning doesn't always have to introduce something new to be valuable. It can also create the time and structure for people to reflect on what they already know, learn from one another, and think more intentionally about how they put that knowledge into practice.
5. What will help people use the learning after the session?
A professional development session may introduce an idea, but an important part of the learning happens when educators have time to connect that idea to their own work. That means we don't need to fill every available minute with presentation. A concise piece of research-based content can give people shared knowledge and language, while leaving room to talk about what it actually looks like with their students and colleagues.
Kristen Barnett, Preschool Promise Administrator with South Lane School District, described this after three years of ongoing Cultivate training:
“Teachers have appreciated the trainings' practical reminders of best practices, but consistently report that the real value lies in the opportunity to reflect on their own practices and hear different perspectives and approaches from their colleagues.”
That reflection can take the conversation in useful directions. Staff might talk about where a strategy is already working, a situation where they're getting stuck, or how someone else on the team approaches a similar challenge. Those conversations also give newer staff access to the experience of colleagues who have been doing the work for years.
Kelly Thayer at Northwest Regional ESD has seen something similar. She noted that Cultivate sessions give paraeducators opportunities to talk through real situations, share strategies, and learn from one another about how to respond to challenging moments in ways that support students.
The conversation isn't extra. It's part of the professional learning.
That's why Cultivate's facilitated sessions pair brief, research-based MicroPD with time for discussion, application, and reflection. The content gives people something useful to work with; the conversation gives them an opportunity to figure out what it could look like in their context.
6. What could make this sustainable beyond this school year?
Sustainability becomes much easier to think about when professional learning is treated as part of the school year rather than a single event. Teams change. New paraprofessionals are hired. Staff roles shift. Topics that felt settled in September may need to be revisited by January.
Natalya McComas, Classroom Program Coordinator with Early Childhood CARES, has seen that play out over three years of using Cultivate:
“Re-visiting topics and tools over time increases the depth of learning and also triggers reminders of foundational practices that can be overlooked or forgotten.”
She also points to the value of flexibility. Early Childhood CARES has worked Cultivate into onboarding, classroom team meetings, and protected professional development time, experimenting with what fits best rather than relying on one fixed structure.
That kind of flexibility matters because sustainability will look different from one setting to another. A district with a strong local facilitator may be able to build learning into existing team meetings or PLCs. Another may need Cultivate-led sessions or additional support developing someone locally. Within an ESD, some districts may be ready to facilitate independently while others need a different level of support.
The question is less about creating a system that never changes and more about building one that can respond when circumstances do. Who will keep the work moving as staff change? How will new paraprofessionals be included? How will participant feedback shape what comes next? Which topics are worth revisiting instead of replacing?
Sustainable professional learning should be able to adapt as the people and needs in the system change.
That may lead one district toward Train-the-Trainer, another toward Cultivate-facilitated sessions, and another toward a mix of asynchronous learning, PLCs, and facilitated discussion. The goal isn't identical implementation. It's an approach that can keep working in the context where it lives.
Readiness is a starting point, not a passing score
When your team starts asking, “What should we train on this year?” keep asking that question. Just add a few others.
Do we have the time, leadership, facilitation, communication, staff input, and support needed to make this useful?
You don't need perfect conditions before you begin. In fact, identifying a low-readiness area may tell you exactly what needs attention first. Maybe the content is ready but no one has protected time. Maybe there is a strong local facilitator but no process for gathering staff input. Maybe several districts in an ESD are ready to lead locally while others need direct facilitation.
That information helps you choose an implementation approach based on the context you actually have.
Cultivate's District Readiness Tool was created to support that conversation. It looks at six areas: structural readiness, leadership and support, financial readiness, communication and collaboration, training content and implementation, and sustainability and long-term impact.
Bring it to a leadership meeting. Compare perspectives. Notice where there is agreement and where there isn't. Identify the conditions already in place and the ones that need more attention.
Then choose the training.
Good content matters. So do the conditions around it.
