Many students aid for different reasons and gain different things from it. Student aides typically do little chores and errands that allow teachers to focus on other things they need to do.
“I have two aides Ashley Thomas and Tyler Bessent, and having them benefits me by freeing up time I would have spent sorting papers, assembling and stapling copies, or doing other time-consuming tasks that really don’t have anything to do with preparing for and/or teaching my classes,” business teacher Vicki Westbrook said.
Aides let teachers focus on their lesson plans rather than the minuscule things that distract them from being able to put everything into their lesson plans.
“My aides used to make copies for me before the administration stopped that for some reason. They also do some tedious things like grading, errands, help me organize, and just basic paperwork.” English teacher Shaun Regan said.
Aides also allow students to get an idea of what it is like to be a teacher and whether or not it is something they might enjoy. Some students try to aide for classes they couldn’t get into at the beginning of the year, so that they can still be in the class, while others aide to not have to take an elective they don’t want to take.
“I aide to get out of P.E. because I already participate in volleyball, and I didn’t feel like I would get the same intensity in P.E. that I do at volleyball practices, and aiding helped me realize that being a teacher is not something I want to be. The responsibility of making sure the kids don’t hurt themselves and how much work actually goes into it is not something I want to do,” sophomore Kaci Squires said.
Just getting out of an undesired elective isn’t the only reason students opt to aide.
“I aid for Mrs. Halbert and Mrs. Bavabhai, and it lets me open up space to do homework and to be able to meet more people that I might of not gotten to meet before. It also has helped me learn how stressful a teachers job can be, with all the tiny things that go behind running a class smoothly,” senior Dalton Parker said.
Over 200 hundreds students aid and most of them earn community hours students aide along with the usual credit for the course, which looks good on a college application.
“A major plus to aiding is I get half a credit and get to rack up some community service hours, which I feel is a good opportunity if a student is ahead on credits and doesn’t want to be stuck in a class that they don’t feel will benefit them with what they are planning to do in the future,” Parker said.
A few students aide for a teacher they already have a class with if they want a mini review.
“I have two students that are actually in my class, and Amber McFadden told me that she learned more this year just from getting to sit in my class a second time so she can absorb the information without the pressure of grades. I have aides that use it as a study hall or they participate in class debates because they had me last year and they like to put their view in on the discussion,” Regan said.
Students have to meet certain requirements to be able to aide.
“We rarely let sophomores aides. It’s mostly juniors and seniors, and they can’t be athletes. They have to be in good standing grades and discipline wise, and have to have their credits up where they need to be with not failing grades,” counselor secretary Collette Johnson said.
