Are you supposed to remove the paper covering the proofgrade materials before cutting or after/
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You should remove them after the cut/engrave. The paper is there to protect the wood from getting burn/smoke stains on the wood. Here is a link that will show you the cut/engrave stains.
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It depends Jason. As Eddie said it will keep the smoke stains off the front, and guard against flashback on the back that comes from the beam leaving burn marks on the material where it strikes the grid on the bed.
If you plan on painting the engraving the paper makes a perfect mask to protect the rest of the surface. If you are doing a photoengrave it is recommended to remove the paper for better detail.
If you remove the paper the smoke stain can be cleaned off with alcohol or ammonia and your fingertip in a rag.
Removing the paper from detailed areas after an engraving is known as weeding, and can be a time-consuming pain if you are doing a quantity.
I have done thousands of two-sided tokens, and it saved me about a week of weeding just to pull the masking off in one piece first and clean them with ammonia which only takes seconds instead of minutes of weeding.
Any reply from official support will have “Staff” next to their name, Eddie and I are just owners trying to help. This place is full of people ready to help if they can, which makes this the best accessory for your new laser. Welcome to the community! 
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I remove BEFORE engraving, because the masking doesn’t really offer any benefit when engraving, and will interfere with fine details. Also in the lighter engraved areas you end up removing the paper but not the adhesive, making the resulting piece really hard to clean.
Ideally, I’ll do any cutting/scoring of the material first, with the masking in place, then without moving the material on the bed, I remove the masking from the portion to be engraved, and then proceed with the engrave.
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What about material not bought from Glowforge? What type of paper do you put on just random pieces… I.e cutting boards, etc…
Here’s a past thread with some options:
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Hi @jasonstanley, I am glad to see you were able to get help from our community about this! I’m going to close this thread - if you have another question, go ahead and post a new topic.