Retaining Special Education Personnel
Special education personnel need to be well-equipped to meet the varied learning needs of students with disabilities. Comprehensive solutions are needed to address the shortages schools and districts are facing. In the interim, impactful strategies to support and ultimately retain staff include: supportive work environments, financial and non-financial work incentives, mentoring, and networking.
APR Mentoring Project
An opportunity to learn alongside current or retired special education personnel.
Over 315 special education personnel are currently participating in the APR Mentoring Project.
APR Mentoring Project
The purpose of the APR Mentoring Project is to retain special education personnel and provide additional support to facilitate their growth as professionals.
Novice special education personnel with 3 or less years of experience are matched with mentors who have 5 or more years of experience.
Mentors are expected to meet with their mentees for at least 30 minutes once a month to discuss educational practices and processes. Each month, mentors are provided with recommended topics and resources by PaTTAN consultants.
According to The Special Education Teacher Pipeline in Pennsylvania: Year 1 Report, 100% of mentees and 98% of mentors agreed or strongly agreed that the project positively impacted the professional development of the mentee.
Roddy Theobald, Equia Aniagyei-Cobbold, Marcy Stein (2023). The Special Education Teacher Pipeline in Pennsylvania: Year 1 Report. CALDER Working Paper No. 289-0723
Networking and Learning Community Opportunities
Join in the conversation and build connections!
Opportunities for the 2023-2024 school year have been carefully crafted to address current topics pertinent to Pennsylvania's special education personnel. View the flyer to find the networking series that best fits your needs. Follow the directions to register and mark your calendars to learn alongside others with similar job responsibilities.
Networking sessions designed specifically for:
Autistic Support Teachers
Certified Orientation & Mobility Specialists
Corrections Education Teachers and Administrators
Educational Audiologists
Educational Interpreters
Emotional Support Teachers
Paraprofessionals
School Psychologists
Special Education Administrators
Speech and Language Pathologists
Special Education Teachers
Teachers of the Deaf
Teachers of the Visually Impaired
2023-24 APR Networking Flyer Revised 10.26.23.pdfPennsylvania Resources: Retaining Special Education Personnel
Erie Middle School of Erie Public School's participated in the Film Festival at the 2019 PA PBS Implementers' Forum. The middle school's video features community support and the unity of POWER as their "mantra" across all students and contexts.
Positive School Climate
Educators are more likely to continue in the field when they experience positive working conditions (Billingsley & Bettini, 2019).
Proactive approaches to behavior promote positive, predictable, and safe environments for all members of the school community. School-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) is a three-tier framework that is being implemented in many schools across Pennsylvania. For more information about PBIS, contact your regional PaTTAN office.
Equipping educators and administrators with the successful preventative tenets of PBIS reduces the social emotional barriers connected to successful student learning and highly effective instruction delivered by our valued educators.
Featured Resources: Retaining Special Education Personnel
The OSEP-funded IRIS Center offers a free, one hour self-paced module for school administrators seeking strategies and resources to support special education personnel and increase their retention.
APR-InductionandMentorship.pdfOSEP has developed a series of "Leverage Briefs" for LEAs as they consider implementation strategies to address the attraction, preparation, and retention of special education personnel.
This brief emphasizes potential supports for newly hired personnel including induction and mentoring.