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Special
needs, extraordinary efforts
By
Julie Rausch
The
state, its universities and school districts are collaborating to
answer the many challenges associated with providing quality educators
to teach children with special needs in Kansas during a time of
teaching shortages in special education.
For
WSU, it’s become an issue of educating large numbers of graduate
students. These students, who are certified teachers in other areas,
are earning full teaching endorsements in special education while
working as novices in a very specialized area.
Photo
by Inside WSU
Jan Gaylord works with third-
and fourth-graders with special needs in the Wichita public
schools. She’s among the 150-plus students in WSU’s
special education master’s program who are teaching special
education on a waiver that allows them to work with special
needs children while earning the special education teaching
endorsement. There is a critical shortage of special education
teachers.
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In
response to the chronic shortage of qualified special education
teachers, some states, including Kansas since 1998, allow public
schools to waive special education teaching requirements. The provision
allows teachers without special education credentials to immediately
fill vacant positions to teach children with special needs while
earning their special education endorsement. WSU’s special
education endorsement requires a master’s degree.
Nearly
two-thirds of WSU’s 233 students seeking master’s degrees
in special education are teachers on waiver. The waiver provision
has increased the number of students in WSU’s special education
master’s program by 300 percent since 1998.
During
the day, these teachers, who have little prior specialized training,
work with children ages birth to 21 with vastly different specialized
needs. On evenings and weekends, the teachers digest what they are
learning in the master of special education degree program.
"They
are tired and frustrated," says Sandra Emery, a former 12-year
special education public school teacher, who is now assistant professor
of special education in mild exceptionalities.
"They’ve
dealt with students in the classroom all day, then they have to
come to classes with graduate-level expectations, realizing they
do not know what they need to know."
Typically,
public school teachers serve children with such diverse challenges
as attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder,
gifted, mild mental retardation, mild autism and behavior disorders.
Other children have delays in specific areas such as language or
reading.
Kay
Gibson, chair of the curriculum and instruction department and also
the sole professor for gifted special education, says students spend
the first 20 minutes of her classes talking about their daily challenges.
Gibson
says waiver students taking the introductory gifted education course
don’t want to talk about different teaching models or the history
of special education. They want to know how to write an individual
education plan. An IEP, required by federal law, documents individual
education needs, evaluations, goals and special services, as well
as how often services are needed and when and where they are delivered.
"They’ll
say, ‘I have a meeting tomorrow and I have to write an IEP.
I don’t have a clue, and I’m going to be responsible for
writing the goals,’" Gibson says.
"You
can’t tell those students, ‘We’re going to cover
that next semester.’ You have to address it right then."
Legal
rights vs. teacher shortages
Children
ages 3 to 21 with disabilities have a legal right to attend regular
classes and receive an appropriate education in the least restrictive
environment. The law says public schools must provide teachers
for children with disabilities. As of November, there were 228 special
education teacher vacancies in the state.
If
no special education teachers can fill the positions, emergency
substitutes are placed in the classrooms. To avoid this less-desirable
situation, school administrators can hire a teacher on a waiver.
Once
each waiver is approved by the Kansas Department of Education, the
district is reimbursed about $19,500 for that teacher.
By
accepting and educating students on waiver certificates, WSU has
helped districts and agencies receive more than $1 million dollars
in waiver reimbursement aid.
Early
intervention is key
Early
childhood special education, taught by Linda Mitchell, assistant
professor, has its own unique and crucial role in the educational
system.
"With
early assessment and support by the time a child enters kindergarten,
they may not even need to be in the special education system,"
says Mitchell. "In many ways we are a prevention program, as
well as a special education early intervention program."
Survey
says
Emery
is in her third year of a five-year survey to gauge the effectiveness
of the waiver program. She is surveying teachers on waiver, administrators
and university faculty.
So
far, the survey shows that most of the teachers take waiver positions
because they need a job, although some indicate a specific desire
to teach special education.
The
survey is tracking degree of satisfaction with knowledge, skills
and confidence in such areas as behavior management, planning instruction
and assessment. Most teachers stated they didn’t have the skills
they needed from the university soon enough in the year. However,
they also said taking classes while teaching special education was
a valuable experience.
In
the survey, 80 percent of the teachers expressed anger, frustration,
fatigue and a lack of support by building personnel.
"Support
in the schools seems to make all the difference in whether teachers
succeed and continue teaching special education," says Emery.
University
faculty expressed frustration for being spread too thin and being
unable to supervise students to their satisfaction.
Local
education agencies and state administrators tend to view the waiver
program as a long-term solution to the teacher shortage. WSU faculty
see the over-burdened program as a short-term fix for a problem
that needs immediate attention to develop effective long-term ways
of addressing this shortage.
Identifying
needs
Emery
says the Wichita school district has hired former teachers as teaching
specialists to provide support for all first-year teachers, which
is particularly helpful to teachers learning to teach special education.
"Also
the Wichita school district collaborates with WSU to provide excellent
Saturday workshops, which interns are required to attend,"
Emery says.
WSU’s
special education professors continue to identify what students
need in order to continue teaching special education.
Ideas
include adding a class targeting reading instruction and blending
the instruction of methods, behavior management and assessment.
Other suggestions include incorporating more mentoring and presentations
by successful, experienced special education teachers.
Jan
Gaylord, who works with third- and fourth-graders in the Wichita
public schools, says she feels more in-depth training, perhaps a
one- or two-week class prior to entering special education classrooms,
would be extremely helpful.
One
of the biggest challenges, say the students, is the enormous amount
of paperwork special education teachers are required to maintain,
which takes time and energy away from their students.
Lisa
Lowrey, who works with seventh and eighth grade students in the
Goddard school district, says her biggest challenge is working with
children who have different learning challenges and ability levels.
Training
is crucial
The
specialized training the teachers are getting from WSU is crucial
for working with children with special needs, says Charlotte Manning,
who works with children ages 6 to 12 in Sedgwick, Kan.
"Teachers
need to know more strategies and techniques for teaching children
with special needs," says Manning. "We need to be exposed
to a variety of ways to handle behaviors."
Checking
goals and objectives and then matching learning activities to those
individual needs also is a challenge, says Manning.
Gaylord,
Lowrey and Manning agree that they receive very good support from
their schools as well as from teaching specialists or other special
education teachers in their buildings.
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