A parapro of distinction

Julie Coleman has quietly earned herself the title of Delaware's 1999 Educational Support Staff Person of the Year. This classroom paraeducator in W.B. Simpson Elementary School's Intensive Leaming Center was overwhelmed by the sudden honor.

"I'm usually behind the scenes," she explains. Coleman, a Delaware State Education Association activist, may consider herself the shy type, but she's anything but when pushing for equal rights for paras in the Caesar Rodney school district.

"The students don't see us as any different. says Coleman of her second and third graders, all referrals to Simpson's Intensive Leaming Center from other Kent County districts.

Coleman and a teacher colleague work with their small class in a wing of the elementary school in Camden, Delaware. Coleman has the responsibility for preparing the notes that children take home to their parents to keep them informed of how their children are behaving.

"These are children who need that extra attention and care," she notes, adding that once they are mainstreamed again, they're usually able to refrain from distracting the teacher and fighting.

For six years-ever since she watched Caesar Rodney teachers vote to include paras in the local Association-Coleman has served as an Association rep. Coleman is a nine-year veteran in her district, and her first 6th graders have graduated from high school. They now like to return to thank Coleman for giving them the redirection they needed.