During this time of the year, it’s not uncommon for teachers to be assigning midterms and wrapping up assessments at the end of the semester. While Leah Bracey, a paraeducator at Kennard-Dale, is neither the one assigning these tests nor the one taking them, she is tested everyday with her job as a para. On her average day, she’s prepared to expect chaos. 
The day starts off by attending Real World English in Laura Drinan’s class. She is free during periods two and three; she could either provide coverage for teachers or assist with office work. In the office she helps fill teacher orders down in the supply room or helps with anything the front office ladies need. By now, she’s probably not hungry, but she has fourth period lunch.
After lunch, she helps in a support class with Sequoia Innerst, a new learning support teacher in the building. Then she goes to the cafeteria. No, she’s not eating lunch again; she has lunch duty. After all of the chaos in lunch, she ends the day with Real World English with Drinan and Applications of Algebra with Eric Updegrove. By the end of the day, she is excited to go home, but some days she stays after to help and assist with our FFA club.
Bracey has been enjoying her last 5 years working here at Kennard-Dale High School. Her first year was an adjustment starting as a Personal Care Assistant (PCA) and assisting in FFA, but she now loves working here as a para.
After seeing the average pay for paraeducators in Pennsylvania, one can see they don’t do it for the money. They do it because they enjoy working with kids.
She didn’t imagine this career path for herself when she was a kid; her original plan was to work with kindergarteners or first graders or to scratch all of that and become a crime scene investigator. However, she doesn’t want to change her profession as of right now. In an interview, she stated that she “can’t imagine doing anything else at this point.”
Bracey is currently completing an online program with Western Governors University, studying as a dual major in elementary and special education. As a younger staff member that participates in students’ classes, she thinks the reason she gets along with students is because she knows all of the students “references.”
“The older I get, the harder it is to understand the references,” she said. She enjoys talking to kids she knows when she is subbing for another teacher, since she sees students she might not see all the time. Her mood isn’t based on her schedule because she likes all of her classes equally, but sometimes in each class, there is a difficult student. Bracey stated that she thinks the way kids treat teachers “isn’t bad, but could be better.”
Getting a new job offers lots of new skills, and Bracey said she has gotten better at her multitasking and listening skills. To be a teacher you need to show empathy, listen to students, be able to observe behavior, and communicate more than anything else. Bracey pointed out that teachers specifically need to show empathy.
In an interview, she said, “I will never understand what it is like to be a teenager in 2023.”
Bracey joined Kennard-Dale to pursue her career path in education and to help a friend of the family with FFA. She started FFA her first year, not only because she knew who ran it, but because she wanted to start building relationships with students since it was her first year.
One would think FFA has wild experiences, but when Bracey was asked what her “wildest school experience has been,” she got excited by the question. “Oh wowwww.” Her excitement slowly died down as she realized she couldn’t think of anything. “Oh no, am I boring?”
Apparently she’s never had too much fun while working because she has never gotten in trouble with the school. A chunk of advice she would give to a teacher: “You just have to roll with it.”
