Teaching aides, or paraprofessionals, play a crucial role in educating students with disabilities. But school administrators across Indiana are struggling to keep and hire the special education assistants, who are often paid less than fast-food workers.
To help cope with the shortage of candidates, school districts are relying more heavily on emergency permits, which are temporary credentials that allow people who aren’t licensed to teach a certain subject.
Advocates for sex education in schools say the subject has been politicized by conservatives and lumped into the loud debate about what students are learning about race and what books they have access to in school.
Advocates of the measure say non-disclosure agreements harm families of students with disabilities, while opponents say NDAs are a useful litigation strategy, and their elimination could result in more due-process requests.
The director of the Indiana School Resource Officers Association wants all police who work in school environments to understand the basics of the job, including adolescent brain development, working with students with special needs and de-escalation techniques.
