Assistant Teachers

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Short Answer

“When you hand good people possibility, they do great things.”

  • Biz Stone, Things a Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of the Creative Mind (2014)

Co-teaching and assistant teaching doesn’t typically work as well as people think it does, as it’s highly variable on implementation. It’s like when you do a group project: one person inevitably does all the work anyways while the other members coast along for credit.

  • There are exceptions, but they’re not the norm.

Assistant teachers support you as if they were a second teacher in the area. They do not replace you, the primary teacher.

The easiest way to have assistant teachers, and substitute teachers, like you as a teacher is having thorough lesson plans and well-behaved students for instruction instead of baby-sitting.

  • Sadly, reality has ways to make this not the ideal situation and the most difficult thing to do.

Initially plan as if any assistant teachers may be absent or unable to assist effectively, because you might not have any of them in the first place.

Long Answer

Notice: For any “laws” I reference, assume I’m referencing the state of Colorado. Requirements may vary by state elsewhere.

As I have not explicitly worked in one of these roles (at least long-term), I’ll focus on interactions between these roles and a teacher/professor and observations I made throughout multiple schools when substitute teaching (Colorado Department of Education, 2019).

Recall how I mentioned the principal has a significant number of tasks and, when the workload is sufficiently large, they bring on people to offset that workload. These are the assistant principals, who have tasks delegated to them or specialize in a particular task that a principal typically focuses on.

There is a similar relationship between teachers and assistant teachers, like “SPED” (Special Education), “Paras” (Paraeducators), TAs (Teaching Assistants), and co-teachers. Though there may be one to many assistant teachers, there is still one primary teacher.

Substitute teachers technically act as replacements for primary teachers, rather than assistants, so I’ll cover them more under the Guest Teachers and Passporting chapters.

Assistant Teacher Types

Special Education (or “SPED”) is a department consisting of 1 or more paraeducators, colloquially called “paras” by staff and students alike. They are professionals working alongside certified teachers and not technically assistants as they may work alongside multiple teachers throughout each day and/or educational period.

Why they’re included in this chapter is because paraeducators support special needs students, like those with IEPs or 504s, from basic help to more advanced assistance. They may need an educator’s guidance or access to material(s) to perform their own duties and support classroom flows. Another way to think about it is they have a separate job within education, but need a subject matter expert (i.e. the instructor) to help them.

Paraprofessionals, as well as teaching assistants, don’t technically have qualification or credentialing requirements in the state of Colorado, as an example, but states may establish policies for expected backgrounds and skills required (Colorado Department of Education, 2025).

Teaching Assistants, or “TAs,” are what their name implies: assistants for a teacher or professor. The requirement for a TA generally is someone, like a past student, with a high success rate/performance in the material they’re assisting with. They could do entire lectures, grading, proctoring, lab assistance, answering questions about material, and more. TAs are meant to ease the teacher’s workload, but often aren’t as familiar with all content as the teacher may be.

Depending on policy, TAs may not host a class or lab on their own without the presence of a teacher of record (you, or an applicable substitute teacher in secondary/primary education).

  • Exceptions may occur, but are dependent on the policies of the institution the TA is teaching at, requiring explicit approval from instructor/department, and other education laws.
  • Even with exceptions, a Master’s degree, PhD, or prior significant teaching experience may be required for approval in higher education.

Depending on the subject(s), your TAs may need licenses and certifications to assist you in the classroom. Check with any relevant authorities or administrative bodies before bringing on a TA.

Co-teachers are licensed teachers assisting with multiple parts of a classroom. Of the categories listed in this chapter, they’re also typically required to have a teaching license alongside the primary teacher/teacher of record. They may share or split teaching duties, work alongside the special needs students, and help with more specialized tasks like meeting accommodations or translating lessons across different languages. Co-teachers may have different backgrounds or similar background as the primary teacher, so they may not be as familiar with your content knowledge but still allowed to assist you in classrooms.

Student Teachers are exactly that: students. They’re not your students though; they’re more like an intern you’re overseeing at work. They’re usually college, university, or graduate students who are under supervision of an existing, certified teacher (or in infrequent cases, a substitute/guest teacher). Student teachers are similar to co-teachers and share responsibilities in duties a teacher normally does, like grading, lesson planning, teaching, and so on. The major difference between co-teachers and student teachers is co-teachers are certified/licensed whereas student teachers are not, so a student teacher cannot be left alone within many education systems.

Assuming you are a current educator reading this, it is safe to assume student teachers are one step below new teachers. It is also safe to assume they may not have much management experience like a typical teacher may need to do the role. They’ll eventually be in the position current educators are, so your main goal is ensuring they aren’t messing up too badly, able to mesh into the education system and the environment they operate in, and offering advice when reasonable to do so.

  • And yes, they will mess up. It’s a matter of when and figuring out how to fix it when they do.

Handling Assistant Teachers

Managing assistant teacher expectations and how they assist you depends on communication and expectations. I’ll put it this way: if you’re the primary teacher, don’t expect your assistant teachers to know what to do if you don’t define what they should do.

Here’s an example list of things to ensure are covered, or at least noted on, when you’re meeting or corresponding with assistant teachers:

  • How to handle special needs, like IEPs and 504s, and accommodations
  • How to split up students
  • Defining the roles and responsibilities of the teacher and assistant teacher(s) to avoid “overstepping” and determine which people hold accountability
  • Decide how much–and which–planning and preparation for the classroom is done by each professional
  • Pet peeves, goals, support methods, classroom strategies, and expectations
  • How the teacher and assistant teacher(s) can get along with each other
  • Defining how much assistance is too much for the students and behavior expectations
  • Any contact details and who to contact in case of situations, emergencies, etc.

To sum up the above, you need to communicate what you need done and you need to share any materials with any assistant teachers. For your own implementations, you’ll have to experiment to determine what works best for you, the students, and the assistant teachers.

  • Whatever you do, get everything you discuss in writing when talking about who covers which things, so you can defend yourself when things go bad and have proof the assistant teacher isn’t pulling their weight when you get questioned about it.

Sometimes, the co-teacher is new and needs experience. In that case, you’re better off imparting some preparation and teaching work rather than only assisting in the background. If the co-teacher’s end goal is becoming a teacher, they need to learn how to be a teacher and not an assistant.

Some setups I’ve seen work “well enough” in practice are:

  • Primary teacher does classroom in general and co-teacher does small group and 1-1.
  • Two teachers take a large group and split it to reduce teacher:student ratio.
    • This can be 2 groups with similar goals or 2 groups with different specialties.
  • Primary teacher teaches normally which co-teacher assists with translating, management, and accessibility.

With assistant teachers, plan as if they may not be present or unable to do work. Things happen, expectations fall apart, communication breaks down; there are myriad reasons for something going awry if it requires two or more teachers to do a general lesson instead of 1 teacher. The last thing you need is a job and success that are heavily dependent on another person.

There are also times when an assistant teacher can make things worse for a classroom. If your assistant teacher does something like the following:

  • Provides too many answers to questions that students are supposed to answer themselves
  • Talks over you and/or distracts the class with talking when only you should be talking
  • Overstepping explicitly defined boundaries.

Then this may be overstepping. If the assistant teacher(s) overstep or cause issues that are not your fault, meet with them, document the incident(s), and escalate if needed.

When Assistant Teacher(s) Are More Experienced

Sometimes the “assistant” teacher has more professional experience in the workplace compared to the primary teacher, despite the difference in positions they hold and who’s name is likely on the lawsuit (only the primary teacher’s).

I typically design education so students hear one voice providing instruction. There can be people who help transmit or interpret instruction, but only one person is the head chef in the kitchen, not multiple.

There’s two things you should do nicely, assuming you’re the primary teacher in this case:

  1. Assert your role.
  2. Ensure they know they’re not supposed to give directions that undermine classroom management.

When concerns arise, you’re better off sorting them out in a one-on-one conversation rather than exploding in public over it to show you did communicate expectations. If issues still continue, and this is in a setting like a school or professional workplace, then you should bring in administration or other higher-level staff up the chain to resolve issues.

Alternative Teaching License

Lastly, I want to quickly go over the alternative teaching license as an aside, at least for Colorado. Some states adopt a non-traditional teacher pathway to address teacher shortages professionals in other fields can undergo (Colorado Department of Education, 2024)(Colorado Department of Education, n.d.). You may, however, need to be part of a teacher preparation program for the license. Still, you’re permitted to do work in a classroom setting usually reserved for the preparation program or after acquiring a license.

Bibliography

  1. Biz Stone. (2014). Things a Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of the Creative Mind. Grand Central Publishing.

  2. Colorado Department of Education. (2025, April 4). Title II, Part A – Highly Qualified Professionals (HQP). https://www.cde.state.co.us/fedprograms/tii/a_hqp

  3. Colorado Department of Education. (2024, October 10). House Bill 1309: Teacher recruitment and preparation programs. https://www.cde.state.co.us/educatortalent/hb1309

  4. Colorado Department of Education. (n.d.). ASPIRE to Teach educator preparation pathway. https://www.cde.state.co.us/educatortalent/educator_preparation_search_engine/pathway_detail/65019/ASPIRE%20to%20Teach

  5. Colorado Department of Education. (2019). Unique role guidance for educator effectiveness. https://www.cde.state.co.us/educatoreffectiveness/uniqueroleguidance

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