Recently a para in our school named Mrs. Ruby Rosado has changed her roll at Waterford High School. A former paraprofessional she is now the main office secretary.

After high school Mrs. Rosado completed a secretarial program and learned basic office skills and procedures that helped her get her first job. She worked in this field for 15 years and then left. This year she returned to her original profession. Rosado explained, “I’ve been wanting to get back to Administrative work. I actually have over 15 years experience in doing this work. I left full time work when my oldest was born and spent some time as a stay at home mom. I decided to come back to work but wanted to work a job that would allow me to be home when my daughters got home from school so that’s how I started working as a para.” Mrs. Rosado has been volunteering in the schools for years, and now that her children are older and with expenses rising, she wanted to to find a job that has more hours and better pay. So, it was time to make the change.  “When this position opened up, I jumped at the chance to do what I enjoy doing in a place I’m already familiar that would be close to the same schedule as my daughters. Win, Win!” 

 The transition has been smooth. “Thankfully, I was able to train a few days with Mrs. MaryBeth Strout and I asked a lot of questions and took a lot of notes! Also, I started while we went to full distance learning for a week, so that gave me time to figure things out before staff and students were in the building. I’d say it took a couple weeks to get used to the change.”

The switch took a bit to get used to. “It can be stressful at times. But, it’s not an overwhelming stress. It’s a busy stress that happens at moments. I think once we go back to full time in the building and back to regular school, it may become more stressful at times, but right now it’s not too bad.” 

Mrs. Rosado says that the only thing more difficult about her new position is multi-tasking. It “is more difficult is managing multiple things happening all at the same time. Working in the main office, there are moments in the day when there’s someone in the office asking questions, someone at the door ringing the buzzer, then someone calling on the phone. As a para, there wasn’t that urgency of multiple things taking place all at the same time. The pace was much slower”  “I truly enjoyed being a para but yes, I do enjoy this job more. It’s what I love, am the most comfortable doing, and feel the most equipped to do.”