001Good morning SAU 16, this is Superintendent of Schools, Chris Andruski, and here I am at Exeter Adult Education where I am with our director/principal, Michelle Votto, who is here to talk about an amazing course for our paraeducators, not just in Exeter, but in our surrounding communities. Principal Votto. Thank you, Dr. Andruski. Yes, my name is Michelle Votto and we are super excited to be here today with our second cohort paraprofessional class here at SAU 16. This is a grant-funded program and it is the first grant-funded IET integrated educational training program in the state of New Hampshire. We actually do the ParaPro Praxis exam located right here and we are excited to provide a local pathway for anybody that's looking to actually work in the field or actually looking for a career change. So, for those
002of you that are watching this right now, if you're looking for a career change and thinking you want to work in the school district, give our office a call. My My number is 603-775-8456 and if you'd like to be a part of our third cohort group in October, feel free to call me if you'd like to work with students in our district. And with that said, I'm going to pass this back over to Dr. Andruski and have you meet with some of our students. Thank you so much, Principal Votto. Let's go meet some of our staff and students in this class. Hi, everybody. I'm Natalie Blackington. And I'm Megan Bearsto. And we are the instructors of the ParaPro course. This course is a wonderful opportunity to give professional development and celebrate our wonderful paraprofessionals in
003district, out of district, people who are interested in becoming a paraprofessionals working in our schools and who are really the lifeblood of everyday in our buildings. We talk about all kinds of things in the work of paraprofessionals, not just preparing, of course, for the ParaPro exam, but also looking at what it really means to be a paraprofessional and being effective. We talk about behavior, we talk about professional skills, we talk about all of the exciting things that ParaPro paraprofessionals do in our schools and we thank everybody who's been a part of it and a part of our course. Here I am with Michelle who works currently in Raymond as a paraprofessional, but Michelle, can you just tell us a little bit about your experience in this course and what you're learning? So, this course has
004been really great so far and I feel that it's a great opportunity for me to improve my skills academically so that I can better assist students at my school and this course is also really great because it helps us to learn how to do our jobs even better than we already do. So, I'm really grateful that I'm here and I'm able to take this class. Thank you so much and thank you for extending your work day and learning with us in the evening. We don't get thanked enough for what you have to go through for paraprofessionals, so let me say that on behalf of all educators and superintendents, thank you, thank you, thank you. And SAU 16, we'll see you in 2 weeks.