School BCBA Systems Letter
Research that leads to a practical next step
You cannot be the classroom aide and still cover the caseload
The trap
A student escalates. The paraprofessional is out, or new, or hasn't been trained on the plan yet. So you step in. You run the session yourself, because it's faster than teaching someone else to run it, and the kid needs support right now.
That's the trap. Every hour you spend as the substitute aide is an hour you didn't spend training the adult who is actually going to be in that room every day after you leave. You cover the gap this week. Next week the same gap is still there, because the person who stays was never taught to close it.
The better question
Not "who can cover this today," but "who is the adult who stays, and have I actually taught them to do this without me?"
That's a different job. Covering a session proves the plan can work. Training the adult who stays is what makes it keep working after you're gone.
Training has to include practice, not just instructions
A 2024 study in Frontiers in Education trained three one-on-one paraprofessionals to deliver behavior-specific praise, using a short training package: a clear definition, video modeling, role-play matched to their actual student, and a quiz before they were allowed to implement. All three increased their use of the strategy after training. But one paraprofessional needed an added coaching step, on top of the training, before her fidelity moved from roughly 10 percent of intervals to a level that mattered. The lesson isn't "training works." It's that some adults need coaching layered on top of training, and you have to plan for that instead of treating training as a one-and-done event.
Spurlock, K. R., Brandon, C. L., & Mathur, S. R. (2024). Effects of behavior-specific praise training on one-on-one paraprofessional-student dyads. Frontiers in Education, 9, Article 1434525.
Coaching the adult beats being the adult
A 2020 case study in Clinical Case Studies followed a coach working with a paraprofessional and her classroom teacher over eight sessions across three months, supporting two first-graders with disruptive behavior. The coach never became the daily support. She observed, gave feedback, and stepped back. By sessions five through seven, the paraprofessional's fidelity reached 100 percent. Both students showed large gains in engagement, and the paraprofessional reported less work stress, not more, once she had the skills and the ongoing check-ins to use them. The coach kept touching base twice a week after the intensive coaching ended, and the gains held.
Alperin, A., Reddy, L. A., Glover, T. A., Breeden, N., Dudek, C., & Regan, P. (2020). Behavior support coaching for a paraprofessional working with first-grade students exhibiting disruptive behavior problems in an urban high-poverty elementary school. Clinical Case Studies, 19(5), 303-320.
What to do this week
1. Pick one plan you've been personally propping up. Name the adult who is supposed to own it long-term.
2. Block one session this week to train that adult with practice and feedback, not a handout.
3. Write down how you'll check their fidelity next week. A written BIP check plan, not a memory of how it looked when you demonstrated it.
4. The next time you're tempted to step in and run the session yourself, ask what that hour of coaching would have bought you instead.
Where this goes next
If this is the third week in a row you've caught yourself covering instead of training, that's not a you problem. It's a system that never built the capacity to hold the plan without you in the room. That's exactly what the Transformation Program is built to fix: https://behaviorschool.com/transformation-program
See the School BCBA Transformation Program
Reply if you want: When you catch yourself covering a session this week, who is the adult who stays, and have you actually trained them?
Until next week,
Rob Spain, BCBA, IBA
Founder, Behavior School
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