Paraprofessional Staffing for K-12 Schools

What a paraprofessional actually does all day

A paraprofessional works under a teacher's direction, and the work is anything but generic. On a 1:1 assignment written into a student's IEP, the para is that student's constant: keeping them regulated and on task, prompting through lessons, supporting transitions, and often handling personal-care duties — feeding, toileting, mobility. In a self-contained classroom, the para is the second or third adult who makes the ratio work, running small-group instruction the teacher plans and collecting data on IEP goals. Many paras also carry duty coverage — cafeteria, recess, arrival and dismissal, bus lines — the unglamorous supervision that keeps a building safe.

Schools deploy paras across all of it: self-contained rooms, 1:1 IEP support, resource rooms, general-education inclusion classrooms, and building coverage. The assignment shapes the skill set — a behavioral-support para and a personal-care para are different jobs sharing a title.

What separates a strong para from a body in a seat: they take direction without needing it twice, prompt without hovering so the student builds independence, record data honestly, stay calm when a student escalates, and show up every day — because for the student on a 1:1, the para's absence is the crisis. A weak para marks time; a strong one is frequently the reason a student's placement holds.

What we screen for in a paraprofessional

Our para screening probes the things that predict whether an assignment holds: real de-escalation experience — what the candidate actually did the last time a student went off, not what they would do hypothetically; honest comfort with personal-care duties, asked directly, because discovering a mismatch in week two costs the student; familiarity with IEP data collection; and a reliability history we verify with prior schools, since attendance is the whole game on a 1:1.

The screen was built by our founder, Robert Flom, a former K-12 teacher who worked alongside paras daily and knows exactly which corners a bad one cuts.

Why our para pool actually shows up

Paraprofessional staffing fails for a simple reason: the people doing the work are treated as interchangeable. We built the model around keeping them. Our staff are paid weekly, every Friday, by direct deposit or Cash App, and they use a mobile app to pick up and swap shifts instead of waiting on a 5 a.m. phone call.

The result is measurable. At Odyssey Public Charter School in Wilmington, Delaware — a school serving 1,000+ K-8 students drawn from five districts — that model holds a 95% day-to-day fill rate, a 40% improvement over the previous provider. Across the engagement we have filled 120+ roles at that one school. The full case study is at /case-studies.

Vetted like they will sit next to a student — because they will

Our founder, Robert Flom, is a former K-12 teacher, and he built the para screening process around one fact: a paraprofessional works inches from students, often the students with the highest needs in the building. So every candidate clears a full background check, the state-required clearances (in Pennsylvania, Acts 34, 151, and 114, with equivalents in neighboring states), a TB test, vaccination documentation, reference checks with prior schools, and a skills screen matched to the assignment.

Our automated credentialing system tracks all of it — every clearance, every expiration date — and cuts typical time-to-hire roughly in half, because candidates arrive with complete files instead of pending paperwork. Districts we have staffed include Christina School District, Chester Community Charter, Breakthrough Public Schools, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

Try before you commit, and keep your pipeline to yourself

Every para placement is temp-to-perm at no cost. Put an aide in the classroom, watch how they work with your students and teachers, and if you want to hire them permanently, there is no conversion fee. Good paras become your employees without a buyout negotiation.

We also work with one client per region. If you sign with us for your area, we will not supply the district or charter competing with you for the same aides. In a role category where schools routinely poach from each other, an exclusive pipeline is the difference between staffing and churn.