A Qualified Teacher for Every Student: Keeping the Good Ones.

Overview & Synopsis

Utah is experiencing chronic, critical, special-educator shortages in all positions and disability areas, including speech and language pathologists and school psychologists. The Utah Attrition Study found that the most common reason for special education professionals leaving positions was "moving out of state," followed by personal reasons. The largest area of potentially preventable attrition was "transferring to a general education teaching position." A study examining why Utah special education teachers leave to become general education teachers surveyed 51 Utah teachers who had left special education. Results indicated that although the teachers were satisfied with the instructional aspects of their work, they were dissatisfied with the noninstructional aspects of special education teaching, particularly paperwork. Another study examined why special education teachers stay on the job, surveying 812 Utah special education teachers with 10 or more years of teaching experience. More than 91.5 percent of these teachers were satisfied with the instructional aspects of teaching, but only 44.4 percent were satisfied with the noninstructional aspects. While overall, teachers felt supported, more support with paperwork would be helpful. Potential strategies to prevent special education teachers from transferring include increasing support from principals and administrators, using technology and organizational skills to help manage paperwork loads, ongoing inservice training and continued education regarding best practices for managing stress, and mentoring or professional peer coaching to pass on skills learned in the classroom. (TD)