Hi again,
It's week six. Your para is good — she shows up early, the kids already like her, she reads the room. And this morning, quietly, while the class settled into independent reading, she leaned over and asked: "During independent reading... what do you actually want me doing?"
Six weeks in.
She's been improvising the whole time. Not because she isn't sharp — because what she got on day one was a schedule, a room number, and good luck. Nobody handed her a plan for how this room actually runs. She's been filling that gap with instinct for six weeks, and doing a decent job of it, and she just told you she's been guessing.
The guilt lands right on you. You're the one who's supposed to direct her work. And here's the honest part: nobody ever gave you an hour to sit down and write out what that direction is. So it never got written. It lived in your head, where it's no use to anybody but you.
I've done this to a good para myself. She deserved a guide and got vibes. I kept meaning to write it down, and "meaning to" carried us clear into November. So this one's as much for me as for you.
The room has a rhythm. It's just never left your head.
Here's the thing. You already know exactly what you want during independent reading. You know it for every block. What your para does, what you do, where she plants herself, what "good" looks like at the vocabulary station. It's all in there. It's just never made it onto paper, because writing it out from a blank page on a Sunday is its own lost afternoon.
That's the kind of job AI is genuinely good at. One planning period, one prompt, and you walk out with the shell of a two-page guide — the rhythm of your room, block by block, and a data routine on page two. Not the finished thing. The draft you were never going to write from scratch.
Write the guide for the role, not the roster
Before the prompt, the rule — with a fresh wrinkle this week.
You're not describing a single child in this guide. You're describing a room and the jobs in it. "The adult running the vocabulary station" needs a script. That script has a chair, a routine, and a job in it. It has no kid in it at all.
Say it plain: the routine is public. The kids are not.
The tempting version is the one to skip. It's easy to think, "let me have AI write a guide for supporting a student who does X, Y, and Z." Stop there. That's a child, not a role — even with no name on it, you're describing a real kid to a robot, and that's the line we don't cross. The student-specific pieces are real and they matter: the behavior plan, the medical need, the why behind a kid's accommodations. Those live where they already live — your district's secure systems and your in-person briefings with your para, handled your district's way. Never in an AI tool.
So what goes into the prompt is your day in generic blocks and what happens in each. No students. Here it is:
You are an experienced special education teacher writing a working guide for a paraprofessional. Here is my day in generic blocks and what happens in each — this contains no student information: [describe your blocks, e.g., "arrival + warm-up; two small-group rotations (reading fluency station, vocabulary station, independent work); co-taught science block; lunch duty; afternoon resource block"]. Draft a two-page guide. Page one: go block by block — for each block, the para's role, her first move when the block starts, and one sentence on what good support looks like there; then a simple, warm script for each station ("at the vocabulary station, your job is..."). Page two: a data-collection routine written for someone who is also actively supporting students — what to tally and when, in plain steps; then a short two-part list, "questions to interrupt me for anytime" and "calls that are always the teacher's." Use plain, warm, respectful language — this is a guide for a valued colleague, not a compliance binder. Don't invent students, behaviors, or any details I didn't give you.
That last line does real work. You want the guide built strictly from the blocks you described, never from a kid the AI decided to imagine.
Page two is where your para earns her keep
Page one is the rhythm. Page two is the quiet superpower.
Two weeks ago we turned an IEP goal into a data-collection system — the tallies, the counts, the routine that doesn't stop instruction. Here's what nobody says out loud: a para can collect half of those data points for you, if the routine is written down. Not the judgment calls. The counts. The "mark a tally every time you hear the target sound at the fluency station" kind of thing. Written clearly, that's a job any good para can own.
The rest of page two is the boundary that makes the whole thing safe: the short list of questions you'd rather she interrupt you for, and the calls that are always yours. A para who knows exactly when to grab you — and knows which decisions were never hers to make — is a para you can actually trust with a room.
"Just follow him around" tells a para her judgment doesn't matter and her time doesn't either. A two-page guide says: you're a professional, here's your playbook, I planned for you.
Edit it with her, over the good coffee
This draft is a shell, and I mean that. The AI doesn't know your para's strengths. It's never met your building or read your handbook. So edit it — twice.
Ten minutes on your own first, cleaning up what the AI got generic. Then ten more with her, over the good coffee, not the workroom sludge. Walk it block by block and ask what she'd change. I'll tell you now: the best line in the finished guide will be one she adds. She's been in that room six weeks. She sees things you stopped seeing in September.
One more boundary, because this one's real. What a para may and may not do — especially around collecting data and supervising students — varies by district, and sometimes by her contract. Your case-management lead or your handbook is the final word, over anything a prompt hands you. Build the guide, then check it against your building's rules.
And a small setup for next week: because that data routine is written down, when progress reports land next month, the numbers are already sitting in your tracker instead of your memory. More on that next week.
The part nobody tells you
A written guide isn't bureaucracy. It's respect.
"Just follow him around" sounds harmless. It isn't. It quietly tells a good para that her judgment doesn't matter and her time isn't worth an hour of your planning. A two-page guide says the opposite, without saying a word: you're a professional, here's your playbook, and I thought about you before you walked in.
Paras stay in rooms where someone planned for them. They stay in the career where someone planned for them. And the guide outlives this year — it's ready for next year's para, for the aide who starts in January, for the sub who covers your para on a Tuesday. You write it once. It keeps paying you back.
Try it this week
Take ten minutes and describe your blocks — just the rhythm, no kids. Run the prompt. Edit the draft for ten minutes on your own. Then find ten more minutes with your para and the good coffee, and edit it with her. Hand it over before Friday.
Then watch what changes Monday. My bet is it's the whole feel of the room.
Bonus move: paste this whole issue into your AI and tell it, "Draft my para guide using these rules."
Then hit reply and tell me the best thing a para ever did for your classroom — or the thing you wish someone had told you about working with one. I'm building future issues from your answers, and the adult team in that room deserves more of them.
Talk soon,
Shaun
P.S. Know a teacher who just got assigned their first para and no idea where to start? Forward this to them. And honestly — you could forward it to your own para. It might be the nicest thing you hand her all month.
A quick but important note: this newsletter is for general educational and informational purposes only. I'm a special education teacher sharing time-saving ideas. The views here are my own and don't represent any school district or employer. I'm not a lawyer, and nothing here is legal, compliance, or professional advice. Always follow your district's and state's policies, especially on AI use and student privacy, and check with the right person in your district before acting on anything significant. You are the professional: review and finalize everything yourself. And never put student names or identifying details into any AI tool.