ESP Webinar Recordings
Information for Recorded Webinars
- Personalized Certificates
Emailed copies of personalized certificates are available for participants of live webinar sessions only once verification of attendance has been completed. Instructions on how to request a personalized certificate is provided during the live session.
- General Session Certificates
General session certificates are available for participants of live and recorded sessions. Instructions on how to obtain general certificates for completing live or recorded sessions are provided during each recorded session. NOTE: General session certificates are not available for recorded sessions identified as “informational."
- Affiliate Viewing Events
NEA affiliates may host recorded webinar viewings as a local or state professional development opportunity. Personalized certificates for all participants of affiliate hosted viewings will be made available. Contact Jessica Brinkley for more information.
General Certificate-Eligible Webinars
The following sessions include a certificate for PD hours.
Meeting People Where They Are: Finding Commonalities and Shared Values to Get What You Want
Establishing commonalities, like shared values, experiences, and goals, is essential for all educators. Whether you are working with students, parents/families, union members, potential union members, or policymakers, meeting them where they are and finding common ground is critical to building effective relationships and ultimately getting what you want.
Join Jen Bramson, Specialized Paraeducator and 2024 NEA ESP of the Year, to learn how to build relationships, overcome challenges, affect behavior, and get what you want with various stakeholders, including your biggest adversaries.
Recording and handouts coming soon...
Becoming a Professional Learning Leader: How to Grow ESP Leadership and Promote Solidarity
Meet Professional Learning Leaders (PLLs) from Project LEAP and learn how they have grown through this leadership experience, elevating their professional skills and presence. Gain insight into how to use a Professional Learning Leader Academy to strengthen the ESP community. The PLLs will share how, through their Academy experience, they have been inspired to stretch their thinking, use their voice, and increase their presence as union leaders.
View recording and handouts >
Advocating for essential professional development for ESPs
In every role, ESPs are integral to meeting student needs and making sure students have the tools and supports needed to succeed in our schools and classrooms. Despite being an important part of the education team, too often ESPs don’t receive professional learning that contributes to their success with students, at their worksites, and in their careers. In this webinar, you will learn from member-leaders and affiliate staff who have union-led success stories for gaining access to important professional development for ESPs.
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Creating a Positive School Culture: Using Verbal Intervention Strategies for Positive Student Behavior Support
Communication skills are often the foundation for implementing student behavior supports. How educators communicate with students during times of crisis or challenging behaviors can impact students’ level of de-escalation. This webinar will provide foundational information on verbal intervention, phases of de-escalation, and positive communication skills. You will learn effective verbal de-escalation strategies that ESPs can use to help support students across school environments. You will also learn how verbal intervention strategies aid in creating a positive school culture that promotes student safety and inclusivity.
View recording and handouts >
Financial Wellness: An Educator's Guide to Managing Money
Learn how to build a budget that works, use strategies for goal setting and eliminating debt, improve your credit score, and manage risk. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to maximize the value of your membership and take control of your personal finances.
School Support Services Outsourcing: The Original Privatization of Education
Learn about an exciting new report from the research and policy group, In The Public Interest, on the value of ESP and the folly of outsourcing them. This is the most up-to-date examination of privatization available for ESP advocates. We will learn persuasive arguments to make to stakeholders about preserving our essential public services in schools.
View the recording and handouts >
ESP Mentoring in Oregon
Education Support Professionals (ESPs) play a vital role in schools and deserve quality ESP Peer Mentoring programs. These programs support and enable ESPs to fulfill their crucial roles in public education today. Join us as we highlight two ESP mentoring programs in Oregon. Hear how two locals worked together to support each other in the journey. Learn how to take an established ESP mentoring program and make it your own, suiting the unique needs within your district. They will share their successes and the roadblocks they encountered in building two successful ESP mentoring programs thriving in Oregon and how you can do the same within your state.
View the recording and handouts >
Building Authentic Relationships as ESP Leaders
ESPs have the power to effect change by building meaningful connections with everyone in the school community including teachers, specialized instruction support personnel (SISP), students, and families. Hear from Pamella Johnson, Academic and Behavioral Intervention Specialist and 2023 NEA ESP of the Year, and learn the importance of building authentic relationships, how to make these connections, and how to empower other ESPs to become more engaged in their roles as leaders and professionals.
View the recording and handouts >
Using Your Authentic Voice to Galvanize and Inspire
Everyone loves a good story, and educators, like ESPs, have the best stories. In this webinar, we’ll explore ways to use stories from your personal experiences as ESPs to help advance student success, public education, and education professions. Join us to learn how personal stories have the power to change attitudes, perceptions, and behavior, and win support for public education.
View the recording and handouts >
School-Home Communication Essentials for ESPs
As an education support professional, you know you have an essential role in the day-to-day work of schools, but you also play a unique role you may not even be aware of. Your smiling face, your understanding look, and your extra effort can help welcome families, build trust, and forge powerful communication highways between school and home. This webinar will highlight the knowledge and skills you need to make the most of every interaction you have with parents and caregivers. You will leave with a greater understanding of the power you have when it comes to engaging families and a greater understanding of how to use your words, tone, and information to build relationships and help bring families into the learning process.
View the recording and handouts >
A National Snapshot of ESP Wages and How to Advocate for a Livable Wage.
It’s no secret that ESPs are underpaid. Recent data shows that ESPs, on average, earn at least $10,000 below a basic living wage in every state of our country. Learn from NEA ESP Quality (ESPQ) and Collective Bargaining and Member Advocacy (CBMA) staff, who will walk participants through the new 2023 ESP Earnings Report data and share information on how to advocate for livable wages for ESPs.
View the recording and handouts >
Investing in Paraeducators: Develop, Empower, and Transform
Learn how one school's commitment to paraeducator development transformed how a district invested in ESPs. Through the work of a team of school leaders and ESPs in a Northern Virginia Middle School, they increased instructional quality, ESP self-efficacy, and workplace equity by investing in differentiated professional learning, leadership development, and workplace equity.
View the recording and handouts >
Pensions 101 for Advocates
Most people don’t want to think about pensions until they are close to retirement, but as advocates we need basic pension knowledge today to protect our members’ futures. Pensions are often targets of school districts or states wanting to cut budgets on the backs of employees. Also, the private contractors in school systems would much rather put money into their own profits than employee retirement. This webinar will give you a working knowledge of pensions and access to additional resources so that you can be an effective advocate for pensions.
View the recording and handouts >
How is the air treating you?
Environmental air quality is important to consider when it comes to the health and safety of students, educators, and families in our school communities. This session will focus on some of the most common health conditions caused by air quality issues. Whether the condition is acute or chronic, mild or severe, join us to learn more about preventative measures and treatments to ensure safe and healthy school environments for all.
View the recording and handouts >
Changing the Lens to Change the Outcome
In this session, you will gain practical ideas to build emotional resilience as ESPs. Learn to take responsibility for your emotional well-being in the face of trauma and secondary traumatic stress by cultivating your resilience to better meet student needs. This session is based on Elena Aguilar’s workbook, Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators, and will incorporate meaningful exercises you can easily take back to your respective roles and work environments. Self-care is important, whether you are a paraeducator or bus driver. Focus on your own well-being by cultivating resilience to change the outcome for yourself and the students you work with daily.
View the recording and handouts >
Do You See Me? The Importance of Pronouncing Names Correctly
Pronouncing a student’s name correctly is important. Imagine going through your whole life rarely hearing your name pronounced properly. There is so much in a person’s name and the importance of pronouncing it correctly is often overlooked. In this session, we will discuss the importance of pronouncing a student's name properly and the profound impact that it can have on them throughout their life. Join this webinar and learn techniques to master how to say names properly so we can show our marginalized students that we see them, value them, and respect their cultures and identities.
View the recording and handouts >
Equitable Discipline and the Role of an ESP
This webinar is rooted in relational equity and culturally responsive social-emotional learning. You will learn about the important connection between authentic relationships with students, families, and staff members and their impact on student success, resiliency, and hope. You will also explore how personal bias impacts disciplinary decisions and actions.
View the recording and handouts >
From Membership to Leadership: Organizing & Mentoring the Next Generation of ESP Leaders
How can we cultivate future ESP leaders so that they can be the leading voices that collectively transform our union and communities? How do we generate a pathway for the next generation of emerging leaders who aspire to take on a more active role within our union? How do we engage ESP members to advance the priorities of the Association? During this webinar, facilitators will share how future ESP leaders in Massachusetts will be supported in their leadership journey through the Leadership Mentor Program—focusing on fostering relationship development through a partnership between individuals who share common goals and visions. As they progress in their leadership journey, emerging ESP leaders will be supported by a veteran ESP leader mentor. Veteran ESP leader mentors will support emerging ESP leaders by putting leadership skills into real-life context and real-life practice. Leadership mentoring at the individual and the Association level can also be a vehicle for greater leadership inclusion and diversity.
Restorative Practices as Liberatory Practice: Developing Self & Social Awareness as An Emerging Circle Keeper
In this webinar, you will acquire tools to deepen your practice as restorative practitioners through anti-oppressive frameworks and restorative theory, including methods of self-inquiry and circle work. Join us to develop an understanding of the connection between unaddressed power dynamics and restorative practices, along with building and maintaining relationships with youth, and those being marginalized.
Using Pronouns to Support a Safe, Welcoming, and Inclusive Environment
Pronouns are used in everyday speech and writing. Positive experiences of social gender affirmation are critical to the health and well-being of transgender and gender diverse people. Social interactions where a person is addressed by their correct name and pronouns, consistent with their gender identity, are widely recognized as a basic — yet critical — aspect of gender affirmation. In this webinar, NEA ESP members discuss the importance of using pronouns and how to use them effectively in schools to ensure a supportive environment for everyone in the education community.
Team Building for All Educators
This thought-provoking webinar will empower you with team-building tools. It offers a holistic approach to NEA's Leadership Competencies with a specific emphasis on "Leading Our Profession," supplemented with "Communication" and "Advocacy." You will learn to engage others by identifying strengths and strengthening weaknesses. Identify roles that players have on a team to promote team success and engage in activities that require you to think critically and solve problems as a team.
Resilient and Ready: Practicing Resiliency in the Education Community
Knowledge of self-regulation, managing and coping with stress, perseverance, and empathy are essential foundations for academic achievement. As important members of the education community, educators embody the characteristics of education achievement and model them for students and colleagues. By further developing traits and strategies in resiliency, educators can manage and regulate their social-emotional learning and become a mentor and model for others.
In this session, educators will review the foundations of resiliency and self-regulation needed to support their work. Strategies and recommendations will be provided to support the specific roles of education support professionals (ESPs), specialized instructional support personnel (SISPs), and teachers.
Our Bodies: Are We Paying Attention to the Signals?
Mental health and physiological health go hand in hand. There are many lifelong and recent factors that impact both, including external stressors, toxic systems, habits, and more that have been either activated or exacerbated by the pandemic. Our lifestyle, environment, and bodies are all trying to tell us something. In this webinar, we will examine the risk factors and resulting health problems that educators are experiencing, as well as provide strategies to improve personal health and mental well-being.
Juneteenth: Taking Time to Unravel Unconscious Biases, A Case Study from Washington State
Learn about the history of Juneteenth, a celebration that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and its relevance to ESPs on the job and in our communities today. We will explore the impact of the racial and social justice reckoning and awakening seen across the country over the last year and its impact on the Washington Education Association (WEA). Participants will learn about the steps WEA is taking to unravel unconscious biases, develop awareness of microaggressions and eliminate discriminatory behaviors through a long term investment in professional development for all members.
Bargaining and Advocacy in the Face of Crisis
Now, more than ever, ESPs have been forced to bargain and advocate as if their lives, and those of which they care for, depend on it, because it literally may. This webinar will focus on becoming better prepared as a union to tackle issues brought upon through crisis, such as protecting ESP careers and advocating for health and safety issues, as well as providing practical skills and resources that can make the union more effective advocates.
Supporting Our Own through ESP Mentoring: Lessons from the Field
Education Support Professionals (ESPs) are an integral part of the education team that supports student learning. When ESPs are hired, they are often left alone to “figure out” what their job entails. This leads to poor job satisfaction, high turnover, and weaker performance. When ESP mentoring is done right, it can lead to improved outcomes for students, greater retention of ESPs, higher job satisfaction, greater confidence, and leadership development.
This session will explore ESP mentoring and how to justify the importance of mentoring to the district, build the program from the bottom up, and document the success of the program through data collection and analysis. Participants will receive information and materials they can bring back to their locals that can be customized to meet their needs. ESP mentoring uses the ESP Professional Growth Continuum (PGC) as its foundation, providing a vision for each ESP career family as ESPs develop their professional learning goals.
Protect Our Schools Together (POST) tool
The Protect Our Schools Together (POST) tool, created by NEA, provides a powerful, real-time means to document COVID-19 safety concerns in schools, such as violations of health and safety agreements—or inappropriate management activity and responses—and other conditions which could lead to COVID-19 outbreaks. This training helps members to develop and implement effective use of the tool, including next steps and how to create a plan of action.
Institutional Racism and Policing: Impact on ESPs
This webinar highlights how institutional racism is embedded in policing, and how it impacts the experiences of education support professionals (ESPs), especially those of color, as they work to create safer learning environments for all students. We will examine institutional racism at the macro, meso, then micro level, and explore possible solutions with a panel of ESP members.
Fighting Privatization in a Time of Crisis
The current state of affairs in our nation and schools should not paralyze our activism, particularly when it comes to resisting the privatization of Education Support Professionals. Social justice has always been a hard fight in this nation, and we have seldom been able to choose ideal timing or conditions in which to assert our rights. We can and will fight privatization today, and tomorrow, regardless of conditions. Participate in this webinar to learn logistics and techniques, and be inspired to do what is necessary to keep public education out of the hands of profiteers.
Grief and Self-Care during the COVID 19 Pandemic
Stress experienced during the COVID 19 pandemic has changed our way of life and forced many to face new challenges. This webinar will provide an overview of the impact that profound personal losses suffered during the COVID 19 pandemic has had on many and suggest strategies that can be utilized to facilitate mourning as well as promote self-care, wellness and resiliency.
Wellness Skills for Self-care and Health for Educational Support Professionals
This training will offer simple healing skills for self-care and for promoting health and wellbeing for Educational Support Professionals (ESPs). The program was developed by Capacitar International for work with schools and educators in the U.S. and in other countries around the world. Based on popular education and energy-based methods, the Capacitar practices empower people to deal with traumatic stress, to stabilize and balance strong emotions and to awaken their own healing process. This workshop will include opportunities to practice and apply various healing methods. These methods can be used by all educators, families, and others in the community.
Harnessing Social and Emotional Learning to Support the Well-Being of ESPs During the COVID-19 Crisis
It takes a whole village to support a whole child, and the strain on our school communities, including our education support professionals, is unprecedented. In this webinar, Dr. Chris Cipriano, Assistant Professor and Director of Research at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, will provide social and emotional learning (SEL) strategies to support ESPs within the school ecosystem to navigate the challenging emotions of these rapidly evolving times. Participants will have the opportunity to explore their complex feelings surrounding the uncertainty caused by COVID-19 and learn strategies for harnessing emotions to cope in healthy and productive ways. Resources for building resilience will be provided and tips for practicing self-care will be tailored to support the unique needs identified by participants.
Tips & Tricks on How to Effectively Utilize Video Conferencing Platforms
Unprecedented times call for creative ways to stay connected with family, friends, colleagues and students. In this webinar participants will learn how to effectively utilize video conferencing platforms. Learnings will include customizing settings using Zoom or Google Meets, adding add-ons to enhance user experience on the Google Meets platform, understanding the difference in features when using a computer versus a tablet or mobile device, and learning how to access virtual meetings from your Gmail account.
NEA Center for Great Public Schools Grants: The Ins and Outs
This webinar will provide an overview of the two NEA Center for Great Public Schools Grant Programs. We will review eligibility requirements and tips on how to write a successful grant proposal, as well as feature outstanding ESP projects that have been funded by the Center for Great Public Schools. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn the who, what, when and where of the grant approval process, so that they can walk away feeling confident in preparing a proposal for their next grant opportunity.
Informational-Only Webinars
The following sessions do not include a certificate for PD hours.
Strengthening Family and Community Engagement for ESPs
Across the country, ESPs are deeply involved in powerful family and community engagement efforts, which help students and support positive worksites. Join us to hear from ESP leaders and NEA staff to discuss lessons learned and promising practices on family and community engagement, and how these insights can empower ESPs.
View the recording and handouts >
ESP Leadership in Action: Voices from the Field
NEA ESP Leadership Institute (formerly Leaders for Tomorrow) is a powerful program that brings together member-leaders from across the country in a yearlong training program. In this webinar, hear firsthand stories from amazing ESPs who recently graduated from the ESPLI program and are making a huge impact through their leadership. Their stories can inform and inspire your work to create a better, fairer public education system for all.
View the recording and handouts >
Avoid the Burnout: How Taking Care of You is the First Step in Meeting the
Needs of the Whole Student
Self-care isn't one size fits all. If you feel depleted and exhausted, join us for a webinar to learn different self-care strategies to help overcome the chronic stress that many Education Support Professionals are feeling. Topics will cover how to balance demands, how to make time for yourself, and how to use mindfulness to avoid burnout and continue to meet the needs of your students. Participants will leave with a toolbox full of wellness strategies, techniques, and tips to overcome life's challenges.
Using Advocacy to Address Contemporary Issues Facing ESPs
Learn how to advocate for education support professionals (ESPs) and address the issues affecting them in today’s school climate. How have pressing issues like COVID, staff shortages, and radicalized parents impacted the way we advocate? And in the future, how will demands for higher compensation and better professional development reshape the ESP world?
Supporting ESPs in Canceling Student Debt
Education must be affordable and accessible to all. Yet for too many of us, the higher education costs to become educators has meant years and even decades of student debt. This system is working for the student loan providers and banks, but not for us. It is time to cancel our student debt.
Using Your Voice – Leading in the 2020 Election
In this webinar, the NEA Campaigns and Elections Team will guide participants on how to virtually engage fellow members in the 2020 election cycle using a new suite of digital resources. There will be an opportunity to learn talking points about the importance of the election and learn strategies and tactics that could be employed in locals to encourage others to be active this election cycle.
School Meal Policy in the COVID-19 Era
This webinar explores the policy and practice of feeding hungry children in the midst of an epidemic. What strategic and pressing advocacy has the NEA Government Relations team engaged in? How have food service workers met the challenges in spite of obstacles and risks? NEA lobbyist, Christin Driscoll, NEA New Mexico Director of Instruction and Professional Learning, Ignacio Sanchez, and Angelica Castañon, Senior Policy Analyst with NEA’s Education Policy and Practice team, lead this timely and relevant discussion.
The ESP PGC: What It Is and How to Use It
This webinar introduces the NEA's ESP Professional Growth Continuum and how it can be used to support members and potential members in their professional growth and development. Participants will come away with a plan for how to use the standards to increase ESPs understanding of their impact on school and student success, and how ESPs can use their knowledge and skills to pursue a credential that validates their expertise and can be used as an organizing tool.
Accommodations and Modifications: What Paraeducators Need to Know
Do you work with students who receive special education services? Do you know what accommodations and modifications they are entitled to in their Individualized Education Program (IEP)? Do you have a clear understanding of your role in providing them? This webinar provides participants with an understanding of accommodations and modifications, how they differ, and the process through which they are determined for individual students. Examples of a variety of accommodations and modifications that support instruction are reviewed.
What Does it Mean to be a 21st Century Education Leader?
Education Support Professionals, like all educators, are making, and will face, some of the toughest decisions in the history of their union and public education. To be equipped, educators must come to see themselves as leaders in their unions and in their professions. Developed by practitioners, and using research and theories on leadership development, the NEA Leadership Competency Framework provides a lens through which educators can self-identify their leadership competency. When used with intentionality, the framework is also a developmental tool that can help educators create a plan for continuous learning and growth. In this session, participants learn an approach for deepening the awareness and use of the framework.
Up Your Productivity Using the New Features of Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Keep
Are you looking for ways to make your life easier through the power of Google? This workshop introduces three Google tools that support improved organization and productivity. Participants learn about the new features and tips of Gmail to make their emails more manageable, how to customize Google calendars, and how to keep track of notes and ideas with Google Keep.
ESPs: Understanding and Supporting Students on the Autism Spectrum
Autism is easily among the most misunderstood of all human conditions which poses daily challenges for educators and students alike. Have you ever asked, "Why do kids with autism do that?" The simple truth is students with autism have several different behaviors that we, as educators, find difficult to understand because we cannot fully comprehend what it's like in the mind and body of someone on the spectrum. This highly informative webinar focuses on identifying the traits and characteristics of autism, development and implementation of proactive strategies to help manage sensory processing issues and meltdowns and the similarities and differences between same aged males and females with autism.
Adult Workplace Bullying
Have you ever witnessed or been a victim of adult-on-adult bullying? While student bullying is widely acknowledged as a national epidemic, adult bullying in education is a problem that is not fully recognized, acknowledged or discussed. In this webinar, participants learn about the characteristics of adult bullying, its negative impact on the workplace and how to identify when bullying occurs. Participants will gain strategies to identify and address bullying behaviors so workplaces can be bully-free.
A Paraeducator Guide to IEP Programs
This webinar provides participants with an understanding of Individualized Education Programs, including the federal laws that govern them. Participants will learn how paraeducators can use this information to provide the best supports to ensure student success and effective communication between teachers, paraeducators, and other members of the instructional team.
American Racism and Nazism Racial Policy
This webinar explores implicit and explicit bias that leads to racism. It explores how racism functions in the U.S. and American reactions to historical events. By highlighting examples of leadership and the influence of targeted minorities in enhancing democratic values, participants will learn how to utilize history to promote competencies for democratic citizenship. They will also learn how our history impacts education, how students of color perceive and are perceived, how the education system responds to students of color, and will provide tips on how to apply the knowledge of this history best in your careers.
More Than an Ounce of Prevention: Building Capacity to Fight Privatization
This webinar is designed to give locals an ounce of prevention and more. It focuses on building the capacity to thwart privatization. It starts with the assumption that most members are not born activists, that activism is learned through experiences that escalate and gradually build the comfort level of individuals and locals. We start with simply attending the monthly school board meeting, but by the time we end, members, leaders, and staff will understand how we can build a bulwark against privatization from that foundation.
Supporting Students Suffering From the Absence of their Parents
This webinar is presented by Dr. Thomas Demaria from the National Center for School Crisis & Bereavement. It discusses how youth come to understand and adjust to real and ambiguous losses and offer practical suggestions on how education support professionals can create a school climate where students are able to talk about their losses and receive needed support. The free resources developed by the Coalition to Support Grieving Students (of which NEA is a Founding Organizational Member) are highlighted.
Supporting Students at Times of Crisis
Crisis is common in the lives of students, whether due to a crisis involving a student's individual family or one that affects the entire school community. These crises have the potential to cause short- and long-term effects on the psychological functioning, emotional adjustment, health, and developmental trajectory of children. ESPs play a vital role in providing important support to students through their individual interactions with students as well as through the impact they have collectively on the school climate. This webinar provides practical suggestions for identifying common adjustment difficulties in children in the aftermath of a crisis and promoting effective coping strategies to reduce the impact of the crisis.
The Role of ESPs in Creating a School Climate for Grieving Students
Almost all youth experience the death of a close friend or family member at some point in their childhood. Even though bereavement is common, the loss of someone close to a student may have a significant impact on their psychological adjustment, academic achievement, and personal development. This webinar, presented by Dr. David Schonfeld from the University of Southern California discusses how children come to understand and adjust to a loss and offer practical suggestions on how ESPs can create a school climate where students are able to talk about their loss and receive needed support.
A Dialogue with ESP about Racial Justice in Education
How we talk about race and racial justice is very important. But it is equally important to bring ALL stakeholders to the table as we discuss and explore racial justice in education and the impact it has on students. ESPs know their students and with shared knowledge, they can have courageous conversation about racial justice and help lead the work on racial equity in their schools. This webinar helps participants develop a shared understanding of racial justice in education, recognize how social injustices impact our students of color, and develop strategies to engage in dialogue with colleagues and community about racial justice.
Spanish-Language Webinars
La National Education Association (NEA) ofrece una serie de capacitaciones en línea para profesionales de apoyo educativo hispanohablantes
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