Paraeducators: What We Do Matters

"Paraeducators: What We Do Matters" is a series of twelve online modules created by the Center for School, Family, and Community at Education Northwest (http://educationnorthwest.org/ ) for the State of Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (http://www.k12.wa.us/ ). The modules are designed to provide rich and engaging self-directed online professional development for paraeducators. Paraeducators play a vital role in K-12 education, but often have more limited professional development opportunities than certified teachers and other professional staff. While the modules were developed for paraeducators in Washington State, the majority of the content is equally relevant and valuable to K-12 paraeducators in other states. By releasing the modules as Open Educational Resources under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, our hope is that they will be adopted more broadly and will help to fill a key need not only in Washington State, but in other parts of the country as well.