AKIRA

Yesterday was my first day as a sub para for the NY Department of Education. A para is essentially a teachers assistant in school. As a sub para, you come in when the permanent sub calls out. The process in itself can be a little overwhelming, but once you’re in, it becomes easier.

First things first, if you want to become a para you need to be nominated by a NY school principal. Once you are nominated by said principal, the process begins. You’ll receive an email stating the next steps, which is filling out all of the required paperwork. After that, you have to do your fingerprint and take your photo ID, which won’t show up for probably two weeks, give or take.

Once, your background check comes back and you’re cleared, the DOE will send an email saying congratulations and it will give you steps to sign in to a site called subcentral where you will find all your work and information about scheduling. You’ll also create your DOE email. Once you relieve the email, you’ll also be eligible for available jobs. Subcentral will call you between 5-10pm or 5:30 am for same day jobs. You can accept of decline these jobs.

I was called the day after I received my congratulations email for my first job. I was nervous but I knew that I would make good money. It’s 166 a day for 6 hours and 50 minutes of time (payday is twice a month). The information was given to me via telephone so make sure you have a pen and paper ready. School for high school starts at 8 but I needed to be there by 7:25. The ride was 45 minutes long but I made it 10 minutes before needed. I signed in at the scrutiny desk, but went to the main office to speak with the secretary. She gave me a paper to fill out and showed me how to clock in with a piece of paper the old school way.

After I words, I was sent upstairs and met with a woman who gave me my assignment and schedule for the day. I was in charge of following one young student around. She was vibrant and nice. I followed her to every class. I sat in an empty chair and doodled while she did her work. It was fairly simple, didn’t require any real work on my end. The teachers all knew what and who I was there for so they never asked questions or spared me a second look, which wasn’t as mean as it sounds. At the end of the day, I returned to the original woman who assigned me my schedule and asked if I was free to go. I went back to the time clock where I left my time card and put it in the puncher to clock out. After that I was home free.

That is it! The job is easy for now. If you want to become permanent, you have to work a minimum of 20 days out of the school year and then go from there. I’ll keep updating as I learn more but this is just the beginning.