CASE STUDY THREE: The Transition Program

I am a Paraeducator working with our district’s Transition students, ages 16 to 18, who are not graduating from high school, and ages 19 to 22 who are post-high school age and have not yet graduated. The majority of our students have Learning Disabilities or Emotional/Behavioral Disturbance and are in need of specialized instruction that is provided through vocational training at the local Technology Center. I’m called a Paraeducator, rather than a Teaching Assistant, because in the ten years I’ve worked for the District I’ve attended enough training to move up the career ladder and be given more responsibility. So in addition to my responsibilities for working directly with the students, I now also supervise two TAs in the Transition Program, and make sure they carry out their responsibilities on a daily basis.

We are housed in a very small building, which we share with another school district with four times as many Transition students. So the building is very crowded, with a very limited amount of privacy. Most of the time it works just fine – we’re like one big happy family - but there is a problem between one of our TAs and one of theirs. It’s a personality conflict. Most of the time they stay out of each other’s way and only speak to each other when it is absolutely necessary. Lately though, there’s been a lot of tension between the two of them. Comments are being made, not directly to each other, but to whoever is in the building at the time. Recently some of our students complained that the other district TA is making rude comments to them. So it really has gone beyond what is appropriate. Something needs to be done.

As the TA supervisor in the transition team, what should I do?

I had already spoken to my TAs about the situation on several occasions, so I thought it was time to involve my supervisor. She works in our building but also has responsibility for students in another building, so she’s not always present. But I do meet regularly with her to check what she wants us to do, and give her progress reports on the students. She’s very organized and likes to have solid data on the students when we discuss their work, so before talking to her I decided to talk to my TA one more time to make sure I had all the facts to present to my supervisor. I have a good working relationship with this TA, but still I didn’t want to put her on the defensive or seem to be making accusations. I started the meeting by expressing my appreciation for her and complimented her on how she works with the students. I acknowledged it was difficult at times to work with so many people in such a small building, with very little privacy and the noise level sometimes extremely high. Her conflict with the other district’s TA was brought up and I asked her to share the most recent information regarding this situation, so I could help resolve it amicably. The TA said they had a personality conflict and they just couldn’t get along with each other. I can see that could be the case, but it’s not an excuse for rudeness. However, I let her keep talking, and then she started sharing information of a very personal nature about the other district TA. Naturally, having been trained in confidentiality issues I won’t tell you what she said, because I felt rather embarrassed that she should tell me such things. And once I realized where the conversation was going, I quickly interrupted her with some questions, let her know that I’d get back to her, and ended the meeting.

But how should I handle this? What should I do about the fact that she’s discussing personal information relating to someone else? And what exactly should I tell my supervisor?