Thread: Teaching Assistant Woes

I am a first year teacher, running a brand new program at my school. Both my program and I have been accepted in the school, even though I was hired a month into the school year and totally turned the classroom teachers' schedules upside down. No problem there. Unfortunately, a big problem has come up and I am looking for advice.

I have a paraeducator in the afternoon, when I am running the computer lab portion of my program. She's about 12 years older than me (I'm 24), but this is her first year at the school, as well. I knew she had a dominant personality from the first day I met her. She's one of those pushy people who always invades your personal space. It's not too much of a stretch to say that she has no boundaries. Well, when we first started running the program, I leaned on her a lot, because I didn't want to ruffle too many feathers and make enemies in a new school. She accepted the control that I gave her, but now that I feel a little more confident about my responsibilities, she won't give it up!

i've been at my school for four months now, and like I said, the teachers are very receptive to my program. They see differences in the students I service and have been extremely flexible in dealing with all of the changes. So, i've decided it's time for me to take back my classroom. I'm still making changes, and when I share those changes with my assistant, her first response is, "Well, what if we do it this way?" She then proceeds to tear apart my suggestion, and all I do anymore is doubt my ability to make decisions. I am to the point where I'm tempted to say to her, "It's not up for debate. This is what we are going to do." I don't want to play the "I"m-the-teacher-you're-the-assistant" card, because we are friends. I really like her, when she's not in my classroom. Yesterday was the last straw. I have to make some scheduling switches to accomodate some new students, and she totally poked holes in my plan, then took her plan around to the other teachers and asked them if HER suggestions would work. I wanted to throw a temper tantrum. On top of all of this, she has no patience, and that's a bad thing when we're dealing with the computers. I'm tired of telling her how to do things with the computer, and ALWAYS explaining what i"m doing and why I'm doing it.

SInce this is my first year, I could talk to my mentor teacher about it, but I feel like all I have any more is problems for her to deal with. So I thought I'd come here. Anybody have any suggestions on how to deal with this? I will try anything!