What Do Teacher Paras Do For Income During School Off-Periods? A Para’s Firsthand Account
I’m grabbing a box of frosted cereal and a half-gallon of 2% at the grocery store last Tuesday when one of my third grade students’ moms spots me. “Lila! How’s your summer going?” She pushes her cart over, asks about my 10-year-old who’s at camp this week, then pauses and leans in a little like she’s asking a question she’s always wondered. “Wait, do you get paid when school’s out? What do paras do for money in between terms anyway?”
I laugh, because I get this question all the time—even from other teachers sometimes. I’ve been a special ed para at our district’s elementary school for 6 years, and like 90% of the paras I work with, I’m on an 180-day contract. That means no pay over summer break, winter break, spring break, or those random extended holidays when kids get time off but staff don’t get a paycheck. My rent went up $180 this year, so off-period income isn’t a fun side hustle for extra shopping. It’s how I pay my car insurance and keep the lights on.
Most of the work paras pick up during off periods is word-of-mouth, because none of us have time during the school year to market a second business. I started doing drop-in playgroups out of my fenced backyard three summers ago, after a couple of parents from school asked if I could watch their toddlers a couple days a week while their older kids were at day camp. I charge $10 a kid per day, cap it at 6 kids to keep it manageable, and do it two days a week. That brings in about $480 a month in summer, which covers my car payment and my kid’s soccer fees.
My friend Lisa, who’s a para in the preschool department, cleans houses for three retired teachers from our district every week during off periods. They hired her four years ago after she helped them move their grandkid into a dorm, and they’ve kept her on ever since. She makes $150 a house, so that’s $1800 a month in summer, enough to cover her rent and her daughter’s college textbooks. Jake, the para who works with kids with behavioral needs at the local middle school, does lawn mowing and leaf blowing for eight regular clients in the neighborhood around the school. He started it when gas prices spiked two years ago, and now it’s steady enough that he doesn’t have to worry about winter break—he does snow plowing for the same clients in the colder months.
I tried seasonal retail once, during winter break a couple years ago. The Target down the street was hiring extra help, and I thought it would be easy quick money. I got scheduled every evening and all day on the weekend, right when I was supposed to be spending Christmas break with my kid, and then they cut my hours to almost nothing after New Year’s like they do with all seasonal hires. I walked away with $270 after two weeks of missing family time, and never did that again. Tutoring sounds like a natural fit, right? I work with kids all day, I know how to help them with reading and math. But most big tutoring companies take 40% of what you charge, and a lot of parents only want to hire certified teachers, even if you’ve been helping kids learn to read for six years. I do a little one-on-one tutoring for two families I know well, but it’s not enough to cover regular bills.
Extended school year, the month-long special ed program that runs over summer, is another option, but there are only a handful of spots. They go to paras with the most seniority first. I applied two years in a row and never got picked, because there are 12 paras who’ve been at the district longer than me that sign up every year.
What most people don’t stop to think about is that this financial stress doesn’t just affect paras—it affects kids too. When paras are scrambling to cover rent during break, that affects how they show up when school starts back. I’ve had more than one co-worker miss the first day of school because they had to pick up an extra shift to cover an unexpected car repair, or quit entirely because they couldn’t make ends meet over a long summer break. That turnover hurts kids, especially kids with disabilities who rely on consistent, familiar adults in their classroom.
There are small, concrete things parents and schools can do to help that don’t cost anything. If you’re a parent who needs childcare, pet sitting, house cleaning, lawn care, or any other casual work this break, ask the paras you know first before you hire a stranger from an app. Most of them would rather work for people they trust than sign up for gig work that takes a 20-30% cut of their pay. If you’re a PTA member or school administrator, send a quick email to all families before summer or winter break with an opt-in list of paras who offer services. It takes 20 minutes to put together, and it brings more clients their way than any social media post would. I keep a running note in my phone of what all the paras I know do during off periods, and I pass out names all the time when people ask—that little bit of word of mouth goes a really long way.
After I told Mrs. Henderson what I do for income this summer, she told me her sister was coming to town for two weeks with two toddlers, and she’d been looking for something low-key for them to do a couple days a week. She signed them up that day, and brought me a jar of her homemade pickles when they showed up last week.
This year, I’ve got enough steady work to cover all my bills over summer, which is more than I could say three years ago. I still check my bank account more often than I’d like to, and I’m still not sure how I’ll cover it if my water heater goes out like the plumber warned me it might. Most of us became paras because we love showing up for kids, not because we expected to get rich. But it’s nice when people know we’re just like everyone else—we need to pay our bills too, and a little referral or a heads up can make all the difference between a stressful break and a calm one.
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