1. Learn about the context of your challenge:   

Throughout Montana, many districts have struggled to fill special education teaching positions.  During the 2022-2023 school year the Office of Public Instruction estimated that there were 100 unfilled positions statewide (1).  To fill these vacancies, many districts have resorted to offering provisional licensing and accessible licensure pathways that will help non-certified teachers quickly transition to becoming a special education teacher while already working in the field. While Kalispell Public Schools is generally able to fill their special education positions either through viable or class V (provisional license) candidates: they have experienced a great deal of turnover in their self contained programming in the past several years. A review of district retention data found that 50% of KPS’s certified self contained staff have held their position for 5 years or less.  Both the K-5 and 6-8 Behavioral Programs have turned over all of their staff in the past eighteen months, while all of the life skills staff at one high school have seen turn over twice over the past two school years (Cadigan 2023). 

Aside from retention numbers, self contained teachers were anonymously surveyed after the first month of the 2023-2024 school year.  The purpose of the survey was to determine teacher’s levels of burnout and secondary traumatic stress associated without working in a self contained setting.   The four part measure included demographic information (years taught, setting, etc), two evidenced based surveys: Maslach Burnout Inventory and Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale, and an anecdotal, prose/free response section with inquiries inquiring about factors related to work related stress and its affects (responses collected in attachment below).  With regards to the secondary traumatic scale, participants noticed the most effect in the domains of losing sleep, “thinking about [their] students when [they] didn’t intend to” and struggling with energy and interest in social interactions and activities of interest in their personal lives. According to Maslach Burnout Inventory results, 75% of respondents showed significant burnout. Anecdotal questions revealed that factors related to burnout included: “Lack of support, directives focusing on incremental changes as opposed to broad program objectives, hostility towards collaboration, parents, parents, parents, behavior of students, massive amount of paperwork and emotional stress due to solving multiple issues every period every day, physical aggression, lack of para staffing, lack of subs, physical toll from demands of the work, work load (lack of lunches and prep periods)” among many others.  

There is very little research about initiatives and programs that specifically support teachers working with self contained populations; however, current best practices in retention of self contained teachers suggest that various levels of support including purposeful mentorship and connection among self contained educators are helpful.  In addition to the pathways to teaching programs (outlined above), which often include tuition reimbursements and stipends, etc, many districts including Missoula, Billings, Hamilton, etc have recently raised salaries and added annual stipends to their collective bargaining agreements for many areas of special education staff, including resource teachers, paraeducators, etc. (2) 

Resources: 

1 Teacher Recruitment and Retention, Montana Office of Public Instruction, 2023, https://leg.mt.gov/content/Committees/Interim/2023-2024/Education/Meetings/september-2023/edic-OPI-RR-sep-2023.pdf. Accessed 10 July 2024.

2 Rousseau, Stephen. “Attrition and retention of special education self-contained teachers: Should I stay or should I go?” Ph.D Dissertation, 2011.

2. Design and execution:  

Cohort: 

1. Reach out to special education director, assistant superintendent in charge of professional development and special projects manager (person in charge of approving professional development) to determine feasibility and specifics of the cohort: obtain approval.  

2. Survey the KPS self contained teacher population to determine their willingness to participate as well as specific considerations revolving around topics to cover, objectives, procedure, meeting place etc.  

3. Set cohort objectives, procedure, schedule, and initial topics and meeting space. 

4. Facilitate monthly cohort meetings 

5.  Survey membership at the end of the school year

6. Gain approval for a second year of the cohort

7. Implement survey feedback to improve upon the initial year’s cohort

Stipend:

1.  Reach out to local/regional union representation to gain context information about how stipends, including verbiage, dollar amounts etc, have been implemented in commensurate districts in recent years throughout Montana.  

2. Survey self contained teacher to determine if they actually want a stipend: they agree that it is largely symbolic but worth the shot

3. Interview KPS Special Education Director and Union President to gather information about negotiations process and potential funding sources. 

4. Attend negotiations meetings to monitor progress and make adjustments as needed.

5. Work with colleagues to draft a proposal for use in spring 2024 contract negotiations

6. Submit finalized copy of stipend proposal (attached) to negotiations team (including union representation and district leaders)

7. Provide follow up information and monitor progress throughout the negotiations cycle

8. Inform self contained teachers of the continued progress of the stipend

3. Execute your action plan:

I executed the action plan as outlined in the design section.  

• For the cohort I think “success” can be defined as simply as having self contained teachers get together to feel supported and heard, while also receiving some professional development credit.  Which we have done for all but one month of the 2023-2024 school year.  Other indicators of success could be positive feedback on an end of year survey: my door is always open to my colleagues to give feedback about the successes or failures of cohort and how it could better function. 

• I would like to say that success for the stipend is actually getting the proposal approved and included in the collective bargaining agreement; however, in my discussions with a couple of experienced negotiators they have assured me that getting your item approved, especially the first time around, is not the benchmark for success because it often takes many bargaining sessions to build consensus, work out the kinks, find the correct funding channels, etc. In this case, collaborating with peers to create a concise, yet thoughtful proposal to get the conversation going is the success.  

4. Reflect recursively

• Next steps will be to begin making arrangements for the second year of the cohort.  I might expand this practice to include another group for teachers at the alternative school I work at.  I will make certain that our proposal is kept alive and updated so that the stipend continues to remain a priority in negotiations and is part of the CBA from here forward.  I would like to empower others to adopt similar approaches for classified staff, so that paraeducators can receive additional compensation.