Updated October 16, 2026

PERM occupation, SOC 25-9043.00, #1,291 of 1,410 by filings

Teaching Assistants, Special Education

15 H-1B LCAs

Major group: Education and library · SOC 25

Weighing an offer for this job?

Where it falls among certified offers, and the four wage levels DOL sets for it by area.

Compare my offer DOL's wage levels for this job

Too few cases for a rate

1 decided filing: too few for an approval rate.

Why

Across every PERM case DOL decided in this window, 3.20% were denied. At that rate a file this size comes back clean most of the time whatever the occupation did, so a percentage would be a fact about how few cases there are. Telling a clean record apart from the field takes about 117 decided cases.

Median wage

$22,000

all PERM $103,272

Filings

#1,291 of 1,410

Approval

Not shown

withheld: 1 decided

Median days

412

middle of 1 decided

What it pays

Where its median offer sits among every occupation, then the whole ladder of certified offers by year and by state.

Position in the field 535 occupations with 30+ decided

Median offered wage

$22,000median of 1 filings, too few decided to rank

$18k $500k

Approval rate

not shownunder 30 decided

49% 100%

Median days to decision

412 daysmiddle of 1 decided, too few to rank

323d 536d

Each bar counts occupations at that value. More

Each bar counts occupations at that value. PERM runs two labour markets through one process, which is why the wage axis is two humps rather than a bell. This occupation has 1 decided cases, so its wage and its median days are marked but left unranked, and no approval rate is drawn at all.

DOL PERM disclosure files

Who files it

The sponsors and firms with the most PERM filings under this code, the places the work sits, and who the workers were.

The job itself

What O*NET says the work is, what the market pays it by BLS's survey, its outlook, and DOL's wage levels year by year.

What the job is

Assist a preschool, elementary, middle, or secondary school teacher to provide academic, social, or life skills to students who have learning, emotional, or physical disabilities. Serve in a position for which a teacher has primary responsibility for the design and implementation of educational programs and services.

Preparation: Medium Preparation Needed; O*NET Job Zone 3
DOL's education basis: High school diploma or equivalent; Wage year 2026-27

The work, most important first

Provide assistance to students with special needs.
Teach socially acceptable behavior, employing techniques such as behavior modification or positive reinforcement.
Supervise students in classrooms, halls, cafeterias, school yards, and gymnasiums, or on field trips.
Provide students with disabilities with assistive devices, supportive technology, and assistance accessing facilities, such as restrooms.
Carry out therapeutic regimens, such as behavior modification and personal development programs, under the supervision of special education instructors, psychologists, or speech-language pathologists.
Tutor and assist children individually or in small groups to help them master assignments and to reinforce learning concepts presented by teachers.

The education workers in it report

High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED)

25%
Some College Courses

18%
Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree

14%

Titles people use for it

Paraprofessional (Para), SPED Aide (Special Education Aide), SPED Para (Special Education Paraprofessional), SPED TA (Special Education Teacher Assistant), Assistant Instructor, Co-Teacher, Educational Assistant, Paraeducator.

This section includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database and O*NET OnLine by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. PERM Tracker has modified some of this information (the shares are rounded and only the top tasks are shown); what changed. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.

Against other jobs

Where this sits in the ranking

Ranked 1,291 of 1,410 by volume: 1,290 filed at least as many filings, and 119 filed no more.

Just above: Civil Engineers, R&D 1 filings
Just below: Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant and System Operators 1 filings

Other education and library roles

Occupations sharing this one's SOC major group, which is carried in the first two digits of the code. More

Occupations sharing this one's SOC major group, which is carried in the first two digits of the code. Wages inside a group still swing hard, because the group holds every seniority level and every metro.

The same job on H-1B

15 certified H-1B labor condition applications for this occupation since FY2020, offering a median of $42,000 a year; the middle half ran $38,740 to $48,275. By state and year in the salary explorer.

Notes on these numbers

Reading the wage

A floor, not a salary survey: every level and metro mixed. DOL's four wage levels for this job, by area.

What the median is

The median wage employers committed to in federal filings for this occupation. It mixes every experience level and every metro, and it's a floor: the employer must offer at least the prevailing wage DOL determines for the occupation, level and county. Across all PERM filings the middle half of offered wages runs $45,178 to $141,357, so a figure inside that band is unremarkable whichever occupation it belongs to. The levels page reads DOL's OFLC wage search live.

What these numbers don't say

4 notes

The code is the identity: This one is SOC 25-9043.00. Two SOC codes can carry the same job title, so a title that looks duplicated on the ranking is two different occupations. Match on the code when you're checking a specific filing.
A median isn’t an offer: It's the middle of all 1 wages committed to for this occupation across the country, entry level and principal alike. The same role's medians swing hard by worksite, which the state map shows directly.
Approval isn’t about the occupation: The denial rate moves with what happened in the filing rather than with the job title, so nothing here is a property of Teaching Assistants, Special Education. The measured factors are on the denial risk page, published as separate rates.
Nothing here is pending: All 1 counted here carry a decision date, because every case in DOL's disclosure files does, so a case still waiting is in none of them. Where the queue stands today is on the processing times page.

The window these figures cover: DOL's PERM disclosure files for fiscal years 2024 to 2026, through the third quarter of 2026, 373,939 decided cases. Nothing pending is counted here. How each figure is built

Weighing an offer?

Compare it against this median, then check the state map, where the same occupation's medians swing hard by worksite.

Setting one?

All 1,410 occupations sort together on the wages page, and denial rates show how outcome moves with the offered wage.

Filings newer than DOL's last published file can't be attributed to this occupation until DOL publishes them. The live list on the case search page carries them by employer.

Case data: DOL quarterly disclosure files (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jun 30, 2026 · quarterly

Employers and firms: Derived from DOL's disclosure files · data through Jun 30, 2026 · rebuilt with each quarterly load

O*NET occupation data: O*NET Database, USDOL/ETA (onetcenter.org) · data through Aug 16, 2026 · twice a year

BLS market pay: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (bls.gov) · data through May 31, 2025 · yearly, each spring

BLS employment projections: BLS Employment Projections (bls.gov) · data through Dec 31, 2025 · yearly, each autumn

DOL wage tables: DOL OFLC wage data downloads (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jul 1, 2026 · yearly, each july

What each source includes

Case data: Decided PERM cases only. A case still waiting isn't in here, so counts and durations describe finished cases.

Employers and firms: Employers, law firms and occupations ranked from decided cases only.

O*NET occupation data: What O*NET says each occupation is and takes: its description, tasks, Job Zone and the education workers report. A description of the job everywhere, not of any one employer's opening.

BLS market pay: What employers report paying everyone in each job, nationally, by state and by metro, from BLS's yearly survey (May of the year named). Citizens and immigrants alike; not PERM offers.

BLS employment projections: BLS's ten-year projection of each job's employment and yearly openings, and the entry education it calls typical. A projection, not a count.

DOL wage tables: The four prevailing wage levels DOL publishes for every job in every area, each wage year from 2021-22, as DOL's own tables print them. The floors an offer is held to, not what anyone was paid.

Cite this page

Waiting on a PERM case?

When it'll likely be decided
An email when DOL moves it