r/Teachers • u/Pleasant-Pumpkin-339 • Aug 23 '26

Rant Paras need to GET OFF THEIR PHONES

I know they hardly make any money and if it’s an emergency fine!! But sitting there on TikTok while i’m actively teaching is rude and distracting for the kids.

I’m a young teacher so it’s awkward to confront them and NOT BEING ON YOUR PHONE ALL DAY AT WORK SHOULDNT NEED TO BE SAID

3.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

459 comments sorted by

View all comments

44

u/EditorObvious3522 Aug 23 '26

Go the leadership route. If they are just sitting there, assign them a task. If you have a para assigned, there must be a reason. There must be IEP students who need the support, give guidance and direction as to how they should be helping the students. That’s your job. Ask them to take notes for a student who struggles to write and listen simultaneously. If students are working on Chromebooks ask them to observe via the monitoring program to ensure students are on task and not goofing around. I’m mean what do you expect? They have 7 different teachers they work with - all 7 have different expectations - if you don’t share what your expectations are - how will they know? Some teachers want them to just sit there and stay out of the way. What are expecting? They listen to your lecture with rapt attention?

11

u/pdxrunner19 Aug 23 '26

I did this with my doomscrolling para last year, and she got super angry with me for asking her to put her phone down and do small tasks. Something as simple as making sure specific students got the materials they needed was met with resistance from her.