Special Education Staffing - Two Problems
Problem One: Is your district experiencing a critical shortage of special educators?
Every state has reported a teacher shortage with special education leading the way.
Take a look at this table of vacancies in US local and state education positions at the end of October each year.
Vacancies in local and state education
(K-12 & public postsecondary)
Oct, 2012 = 89,000
Oct, 2014 = 131,000
Oct, 2016 = 114,000
Oct, 2018 = 214,000
Oct, 2020 = 232,000
Oct, 2022 = 330,000
US. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected in 2016 that over 16,000 special educators would leave the field each year, but the trend has accelerated and the pandemic made the problem worse. In September, the leader of a large urban district shared with me that her district opened this fall with 600 special education vacancies. How are you managing?
What can we do?
Teacher preparation programs at Universities report a decline in the number of candidates for special education. Surveys of special educators leaving the field cite issues like lack of professional respect, difficult working conditions, low pay, increasing caseloads, and limited mentoring and support for new special education requirements.
I have spoken with leaders in my Joyful Inclusion Schools about all these issues. We’ve worked together to address these issues. We focus on improving the effectiveness of special ed - general ed collaboration. Our professional development packages provide specific strategies that increase teacher effectiveness with students and partnership with families, which in turn expand teachers’ job satisfaction. Most of all, our Inclusion Coaches build strong mentoring relationships with these teachers.
But lately we’ve been dealing with a second emerging problem.
Problem Two: Are your special educators being pulled from their teaching assignments to serve as substitutes?
Picture this: the Inclusion Coach works with teachers on a specific strategy they can use in their co-taught lesson. These teachers plan their flexible grouping and create instructional materials for their lesson. Then the day arrives. The Coach drops by their classroom to provide feedback, only to discover the general educator teaching solo. He had to scramble at the last minute to re-create the lesson without the special educator who was pulled for substitute duty.
At first, I thought this was a temporary issue in just one or two schools.
What are the unspoken communications in this practice?
To co-teachers: your collaboration isn’t a priority
To general educators: you can do without your special educator
To special educator: you’re not needed in the classroom
To students: your needs aren’t a priority
To parents: our agreement for provision of special education services can be flexible when we are in a bind
Surely, these are not the messages that leaders want to communicate. I know that desperate times call for desperate measures. I understand that the shortage of substitutes may be even worse than the shortage of teachers. But I have some concerns about pulling special educators on a regular basis to cover classes.
I asked a Special Education Director whether this was happening in her district. She said,
“If I hear that any Principal in my district pulls a special educator for substitute duty, I’ll file a complaint with the Superintendent’s office that he has violated the provisions of the Individuals with Disability Education Act. Pulling special educators for coverage is not an option here. Special education services are a student’s civil right”
How are things going in your district? Do you have a shortage of special educators? How are you managing? Are special educators being pulled to cover for lack of substitutes?
