Our Resources
Our thoughtfully curated resources go beyond theory, delivering immediately actionable strategies that you can implement the next day. They are designed around the real challenges education communities are facing right now.
Our Selection
Increase Access to Grade-Level Learning for Students With Disabilities
From Overlooked to Essential: The Power of Investing in Paraprofessionals
This case study offers a roadmap for transforming how schools develop their most underutilized educators.
Framework: The Role of a Paraprofessional
This flexible guide outlines paraprofessional roles in schools, focusing on instructional, communication, executive-functioning, social-emotional, and medical supports. It includes strategies and planning prompts for teaming with teachers, using assistive tech, and tracking goals/behavior.
Tool: High Leverage Practices for Paraeducators
Teachers and paraeducators can collaboratively utilize high-leverage practices (HLPs) for planning and implementing SDI in their classrooms. This guide serves to illustrate the HLPs that can be used when delivering SDI.
Case Study
From Overlooked to Essential: The Power of Investing in Paraprofessionals
Paraprofessionals work daily with students who need the most support, yet they're often excluded from meaningful professional development. SPED Strategies' Senior Director of Implementation, Brittney Robins, saw this pattern firsthand in New Orleans schools and brought a bold solution: create professional learning designed specifically for paraprofessionals. What started as a question became our most transformative offering.
How to use this resource:
Whether you're a district leader evaluating professional development priorities, a special education director seeking to strengthen inclusive practices, or a school administrator looking to better support your paraprofessionals, this case study offers a roadmap for transforming how schools develop their most underutilized educators.
As a school leader, I watched paraprofessionals show up every single day for our most vulnerable students, then saw them sent to make copies during professional development. That disconnect became impossible to ignore. I kept thinking: what would happen if we invested in them the way we invest in teachers?
Framework
The Role of a Paraprofessional
Paraprofessionals play a crucial role in ensuring that the students under their care have the greatest access to the general education setting across their day. While their responsibilities can vary widely depending on the specific needs of a student and the school and/or district policies, this resource offers an overview of key support areas and related guidance that can be used flexibly in any community.
How to use this resource:
Paraprofessionals can use it to understand their responsibilities across five key areas. Teachers can use this resource to structure conversations about expectations and ensure paraprofessionals have the resources they need, while school leaders can use it as a foundation for professional development or job descriptions. Rather than reading it sequentially, jump to whichever support area is most relevant to your current situation and use the questions as conversation starters to promote proactive collaboration.
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Explore Our Archived Resources
Why Inclusive Education
A data-rich one-pager that explains the current challenge for students with disabilities and why inclusion is the solution. Summarizes research showing improved academics, graduation, postsecondary outcomes, teacher effectiveness, and collaboration when schools adopt inclusive mindsets and practices.
What is Inclusive Education
A one-page primer that defines inclusive education and contrasts it with exclusion, segregation, and integration. It highlights the three core elements—Inclusive Mindsets, Inclusive Practices, and Inclusive Systems & Structures—and clarifies what inclusive education is and is not for schools.
Inclusive Education Illuminated
A family-friendly guide to inclusive education—what it is, why it improves outcomes, and how it differs from past models. Includes advocacy tips, ways to partner with schools, key terms, and checklists/resources to support your child.
Accessible Physical Spaces
This checklist is designed to help educators create accessible physical spaces by organizing their environment and materials to maximize learning opportunities and promote engagement for every student. It can be used by leaders and educators to evaluate and plan for physical spaces in a school community.
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