JOPLIN, Mo. — The Joplin School District is focusing attention on a career path for workers interested in serving special education students.

It’s offering extra training to paraprofessionals who want to become behavior interventionists.

While both roles work in special education classrooms, a behavior interventionist is specifically trained to deal with a range of challenges unique to that classroom.

“Staying on task, maintaining attention to a specific task despite distractions that are happening around them. Also just increasing functional skills like taking care of themselves, brushing teeth appropriately, all kinds of different things,” said Meghan Klosterman, Joplin Schools Dir. Spec. Ed.

School leaders say there are significant wage increases for workers who take on the training.

For more information about the position and training, visit the link here.