What Every Teacher Needs to Know: Special Education for General Education Teams

With massive teaching shortages across the country, many districts are finding themselves starting the 23-24 SY without enough qualified special education teachers. Shortages in special education staff has historically been a common challenge for districts, but this year shortages are at a volume in which has never been seen, coupled with shortages of all teachers, paraprofessionals, outside service providers and even superintendents. This creates problems on many levels for current staff, students and families, but particularly for our most vulnerable students. (Did I mention that there are also more students with diagnosed disabilities in our classrooms than ever before?)

One thing that can be done is to ensure that the teachers that are present this school year are prepared, capable and ready to support all learners. This is something that Education Modified has studied for the past 7 years: What do teachers really need to know about special education students? When do they need to know it? How are they getting this information? And, what is most important to their pedagogy, job satisfaction and success?

Working with districts across the country, and funded by the Institute for Education Sciences at the US Department of Education, our team has learned many things. Research has shown for a long time that when teachers collaborate with each other and with families, student outcomes are improved. Additionally, when teachers collaborate more regularly, like in successful co-teaching models, student outcomes are improved.

Over the years, our team at EdMod has developed a framework for inclusion, which we believe is even more important now than ever for special and district leaders to adopt to support general education teams in addressing all learners.  In a time when our nation has record levels of special education teachers, it is important to set up existing teachers for success. 

Access

We have learned that without access, improved outcomes for students with special needs is a pipe dream. The reality today is that many teachers still don’t even know who has an IEP or 504 in their class. This is because special education has become a data problem, and we haven’t taken into consideration the practicality of what we are asking teachers to know and do.

The good news is districts can start small, and simple, by simply giving teachers an easy way to access key data that they need about students with IEPs and 504s. Many districts create IEPs at a Glance and share it out with staff at the beginning of the year, but does not take into account the frequency with which all teachers need access to this information within their workflow. This is something that can easily be improved and made more efficient with technology.

Collaboration

Once teachers have the information they need, when they need it, only then can they begin to meaningfully contribute and collaborate with other teachers. That is, if they have systems, processes or technology that allows them to do so. Teachers (and paras, counselors, and services providers for that matter,) gain so much knowledge and data about students from spending so much time with them. However, this professional memory is often trapped in teachers’ brains as there aren’t easy ways for them to communicate this information. Beyond the teachers’ lounge, hallway talk, other in person meetings and email, teachers move on to the next period, class or even the next year without sharing this knowledge. Progress monitoring is also done in silos, with each teacher using their own methods, and there is no central location of data collection that all teachers can access. This problem is obviously worse if there are even less teachers. 

Districts can support teachers by giving them state of the art technology to capture professional memory, collect data and collaborate using this information. And then, and only then, can we start to see the dream of improved pedagogy and improved student outcomes come to fruition.

Improved Outcomes

Once teachers have the information they need, when they need it and are able to share, collect, contribute and collaborate using shared knowledge and data, then they can begin to implement best practices that we know improve outcomes for students with disabilities. 

Using this data teachers don’t have to rely on special education teachers to keep them informed or prepared about what is working, but instead can contribute their professional knowledge and learnings with others to begin to implement need specific strategies, individualized support, better goals and differentiated instruction. 

Teacher shortages pose a huge risk to our education system and an even bigger burden on those staff that have chosen (thankfully) to stay.  Not having enough qualified special educators in our classrooms this Fall puts our already disadvantaged students at a further disadvantage. 

By informing, preparing and fortifying our teachers with the information they need to know about students with disabilities, districts can mitigate the risks posed by special educator shortages. Teachers, who no longer have to rely on the case manager or bug their co teacher for information about Johnny’s IEP, can spend time instead using the knowledge available at their fingertips to support Johnny.

Education Modified is funded by the US Department of Education Institute for Education Sciences.  Melissa Corto was a special education teacher in NYC Public Schools for 9 years and a mentor, case manager & coach.