🌞 Summer Work & ESY Opportunities – What You Need to Know
We know many of you are eager to keep working through the summer—thank you for your commitment to your students! While we'd love to offer summer roles to everyone, Extended School Year (ESY) services work a bit differently, and we want to be transparent about what to expect.
âť“What is ESY?
- ESY provides special education services during school breaks (typically summer).
- It’s designed to help students with disabilities maintain their progress and avoid regression.
ESY services are assigned individually by the IEP team—not every student qualifies.
🤔 Why aren’t there more summer roles?
- ESY programs are smaller than regular school years and need fewer paraprofessionals.
- School districts must first offer these roles to their in-house, unionized staff—this is a legal and contractual obligation.
- If the district can’t fill a role with internal staff, they may turn to Zen for support—but often at the last minute.
Most ESY roles come through in the final week of the school year or just as ESY begins.
✅ What we’re doing
- If you're in a long-term role now, we are actively working with your district to renew your assignment for next school year to keep things consistent for you and your students.
If an ESY role does become available and you're a strong match, we'll reach out directly.
đź“ž What you can do
- We know you're eager, but calling or messaging your AM about ESY will not improve your chances—we promise to contact you if something comes up.
Please make sure your availability is up to date in your Zen profile so we know you’re ready to go.
We genuinely appreciate your dedication and understand this can be frustrating. We’re doing everything we can to support our districts and make sure you’re the first to know when a summer role opens up.
Thank you for all you do đź’›
– The Zen Team