The last four years in education have brought forth some of the biggest challenges in our nation’s history. Paraprofessionals have done everything they can to support the needs of students and have done a phenomenal job in doing so regardless of the obstacles they face. With the high volume of turnover, schools are looking for additional ways to best support the paraprofessionals and teacher assistants that are striving to meet diverse needs of the students in their schools, and districts. This virtual conference focuses on providing perspectives on what paraprofessionals can do through the framework of Culturize by Jimmy Casas.  Using these transformational pillars of behavior showcased below, each of the sessions will apply perspectives on how to meet the 4 Core Values of the Culturize framework and put them into action in your schools through the lens of paraprofessionals. 

Champion for Students: Never Quit on a Student. When a student doesn’t meet your expectations, invest more time to understand their story. Show compassion and empathy. When we take time to connect to their experiences, it shows we value them and their voice. 

Expect Excellence: What we model is what we get. Model the behaviors you want others to emulate. We should never ask others to do what we are not willing to do ourselves. Every school has average, but we should not allow average to be the standard. 

Carry the Banner: Be a positive voice at all times for your students, colleagues and families. Do your best to create meaningful experiences with those whom you come in contact with so when they walk away, they speak positively about their interaction with you. 

Merchant of Hope: Believe that everyone wants to be great. No student, parent, or staff member wants to be a failure. However, there will be times when people lose their ways. Believe you can inspire others to be more and do more than they ever thought possible. 

Culturize affords attendees to hear a variety of perspectives from some of the best thought leaders in the field of education around ways to best be champions for students, expect excellence, carry the banner, and be merchants of hope.  Through these perspectives on a variety of topics within education, paraprofessionals will learn how they can apply this in their context and then ultimately, create a plan on how to best use that perspective for the remainder of the 2023-24 school year and carry that into the 2024-25 school year. 

This IS the conference that is going to not only provide paraprofessionals with perspectives on practical tools and strategies for the 2024-25 school year, but also provide a renewed sense of energy and optimism for paraprofessionals that chose this great profession.