This Mom Saw a Need and Filled It. Now a Paraeducator, She Makes Up the ‘Backbone of the School.’

Chaula Butterworth was a stay-at-home mom before the pandemic, raising her three school-aged kids.

But as her youngest child’s school district sought to return to in-person learning in 2021, Butterworth felt something of a call to service.

Many teachers and school staff were reluctant to return to crowded classrooms and hallways as the virus continued to spread. And Butterworth didn’t blame them. But many children — including her youngest, who has special needs — “desperately needed to get back into school,” she says.

Butterworth figured she could be part of the solution.

“I knew there was a need, and I could fill it,” she says, “so I did.”

By fall of 2021, Butterworth was hired as a general education paraeducator at Farmland Elementary in Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools, a large district just outside of Washington, D.C.

Heading into her fourth year in the role, Butterworth spoke with EdSurge for our new series, “Role Call,” which spotlights sometimes-inconspicuous school staff who help shape each day for kids.

Butterworth explains what compelled her to take the job, how unpredictable the days can be, and what people misunderstand about schools today.

The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

EdSurge: How did you get here? What brought you to your role as a paraeducator?

Chaula Butterworth: For better or for worse, it was the pandemic. Our school district was trying to ramp up to get students back in school, and my youngest really needed to be back in school. My two older kids, who were in private school, had been back since the fall [of 2020], and the public schools weren’t going to be opening back up until mid-March [of 2021].

I wanted to, one, show my support for teachers. I know a lot of them were leery, nervous, scared, so I figured I would put myself out there as well.

It was important for me to sort of walk the walk if I wanted schools to open back up. I wanted teachers to feel heard and seen and get my own child back in school. It was like, I’ll put my money where my mouth is.

I started, actually, as a classroom monitor … and when the 2020-2021 school year ended, the administration where I was working said, ‘Hey, if you want to be a para, come back and let us know.’ And so I did.

When people outside of school ask you what you do, like at a social event, how do you describe your work?

‘Paraeducator’ is kind of — not nebulous, per se, but a lot of people don’t know what that is. If I tell them I’m, like, a teacher’s aide, that is more descriptive for people who aren’t within the education field.

I was told, even before I joined MCPS, that paraeducators are the backbone of the school. I kind of thought, ‘Yeah, people just say that.’ But no, I know from my experience, and working with the other paras who are on the team at Farmland, we do everything and anything at the drop of a hat. We’ll go and cover a class when a teacher is, all of a sudden, sick. [Maybe] we’re needed in the cafeteria because one of our coworkers, another para, has gotten sick. Or we’re short-staffed in the office, and they ask if we can come and answer phones for a while.

It’s not just with the students — although that is primarily it — but we are kind of versatile. At Farmland, the paras are all females. We’re sort of Janes of all trades.

What does a hard day look like in your role?

We are in classrooms. We’re at lunch and recess. We are on arrival duty and dismissal duty. So the students see us in a lot of different places throughout the school.

Every once in a while, a student is having a really hard time, and because they’ve seen us in a few places and we’ve worked with them, they’ll come and tell us, you know, ‘My mom’s in the hospital,’ or ‘My dog died,’ or ‘My dad’s overseas … and I don’t know what I’m going to see him next.’

I’m at an elementary school, so sometimes the students are quite young, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still have big feelings or big things happening in their lives. Sometimes there’s just no easy way to help a child through that, other than to just listen. I feel like, ‘I can’t fix this, but I can be a good listener today.’

Other times, it’s when we’re short-staffed and there really aren’t enough of us. That’s a hard day.

When you say short-staffed, do you mean the paraeducators or the whole school?

Two school years ago, we had one paraeducator out on medical leave and then another had a death in the family in another country. We were down two paras for about three or four weeks, and that’s a long time.

At my school, we are on lunch and recess duty, so when we are short-staffed, we don’t have the same amount of paras to spread out over all the lunches and recess. So we get plugged in to help out some more. It’s part of the job, but it also means that that’s time we’re not able to spend in a classroom working or in small groups with the students. And that’s hard because that’s where the fun happens — some of the learning, the change, the sort of “Eureka” moments are there.

Part of it is we might not know until we walk into the school. … It’s not unusual to be walking in and receive a text saying, ‘Hey, we need you to cover this teacher’s class,’ or, ‘We are going to be short-staffed. Make sure you check the lunch and recess schedule.’ So going back to being the backbone, in addition to supporting a lot of the structures and learning within the school, we are also incredibly flexible. Our assignments can change on a dime.

What does a really good day look like?

The times for me, personally, when I’ve been working with a student — whether it’s math, reading, social studies — when that light bulb sort of goes off and the student makes that connection or can sort of understand how that math formula works? That’s always fulfilling, [knowing] that I’ve helped a student learn something new that will help them learn even more new things. Those are good days.

The days when the students come up and say, ‘Thank you for being here, Mrs. Butterworth,’ and you get a quick hug — that’s just awesome. Getting recognized out in the community — that’s not part of my school day, but knowing that there are students for whom we make an impact is powerful.

It sounds like the student aspect is the richest and most rewarding part of this work for you. What does that look like, when you’re in a classroom?

So at Farmland, when the school year starts, we have our assignments laid out for us. Last school year, I worked with a fifth grade class for almost an hour in the mornings, during their reading and writing time. I would go in once the teacher had gotten everyone started on the assignment. There were a handful of students that I would work with in a small group. A couple of them were English language learners.

I also supported a fifth grade class with math, and a lot of the class were also English language learners — so just helping try and break things down into chunks so that they could understand the math function. And then I supported a fourth grade class with math.

For those of us in the general education pool, we are assigned to classes for specific periods or learning blocks. That’s how my school uses general education paras.

What do you wish you could change about your school or the education system more broadly today?

I wish more people knew what actually went on in a school.

I’ve long said teachers are social workers, they are truancy officers, they are parents, they are guardians. I mean, teachers fill a tremendous role in a child’s life, and you go out from there — so do the paraeducators, so do the administrators. There’s a lot of things that go on in a school, and it’s not just the learning. We need the school counselors. We need our building maintenance staff. We need all of it to fire on all cylinders.

I think sometimes it’s just easy to short shrift what we do — what is done in schools. We are shaping the future. We are helping young minds grow and hopefully become really engaged people as they get older — engaged with their learning, engaged with their community. And so anybody who has an opportunity to volunteer in their child’s school, I’m like, ‘Yeah, you should do it. You should go in and see what goes on.’ It’s a great place. There’s fun, there’s drama, there’s anxiety, there’s every emotion there, but it’s all for the good.

We have something on the order of 65 or 70 different languages that are spoken among the families at our school, out of about 800 students. Off the top of my head, I know there’s Russian, Ukrainian, Afghani, Israeli, South Korean families. It’s just all over. School is a microcosm of the larger community that’s around the school, so it’s interesting.

Your role gives you unique access and insight into today’s youth. What’s one thing you’ve learned about young people through your work as a paraeducator?

I have three kids of my own, and so I’ve kind of always known that kids were sponges and will soak up everything and anything, even the things you don’t want them to soak up. But they want to do well. They want to try and do better. Whether it’s, ‘I wasn’t a very good friend today,’ or, ‘I didn’t do as well as I wanted on that assessment,’ they seem to be willing to ask for help, which is good.

Sometimes we all just need a helping hand.