Q&A With District 197 Paraprofessional Mark Krey

Name: Mark Krey

Job: Paraprofessional at Heritage Middle School, union representative

Patch: What do you do as a paraprofessional?

Krey: I work with the higher functioning kids with special needs so they’re able to stay in the mainstream classrooms. I assist them with whatever they need in order to be successful in the classroom with the assignments that are given. For example, like today I pulled out a group of kids with special needs to work with them on a worksheet that had to do with pulleys. Sometimes they’re able to do the work, the assignments, but they’re not that fast at them. So what I’ll do is modify the homework or assignment so they’re doing a little bit of everything, not the full assignment.

Patch: How did you get your job?

Krey: Prior to this I was a school bus driver in the district. And then I switched to being a lunchroom playground supervisor and driving school bus, then I became a hall supervisor at the high school, and then I went back to driving bus because of the hours. I started out my special-ed para career being a special-ed one-on-one para, and a position opened up at the school where my daughter was going to school, and it had enough hours and paid enough so I could support my family. And I’ve always had a knack for working with kids; I have a lot of patience and it kind of came my way. I didn’t set out to do this, but I wound up doing it and I love it.

Patch: What is your favorite part of the job?

Krey: My favorite part of the job is when you’re working with a student and they can’t seem to get what you’re working on, and then all of a sudden they understand it. They get it, and the light bulb goes on and it’s like, “Yeah! that’s what I do this job for!” … And the look on their face when they do is by far the best part of the job. 

Patch: What’s the toughest part of the job?

Krey: I would say that, besides working in the classroom we have stuff we do to prepare lessons, maybe modify the worksheets they’re going to be doing in class that day … At times it seems like there’s not enough time to work in the classroom and kinda get things prepared for the group of kids you’re going to be working with.

Patch: What’s your favorite type of assignment to work on?

Krey: The type of assignment where they have to do some reading and search out and figure out what the answer is. Because then you can push the kids and you can see just exactly how much they can do, and then just push them a little bit more and give them some assistance, and they can do something that maybe they thought they couldn’t do or maybe they thought was too hard. All of a sudden they get it, and it builds up their self confidence and it makes me feel really good when they’re successful at that. 

Patch: Anything you’d like to add?

Krey: There’s a lot of us that do this and we do consider it a career. When I graduated high school I never thought I’d be working with special ed kids in a classroom in a school. Not at all. … This is like the greatest career for me that there is, is working with kids and helping them. …. It allows me to help them be successful and in the end that’s going to benefit our community and our country when these kids are better educated. No one should be left behind and I know that special ed paras, we make a difference to make sure that no one is left behind.