Recruiting and Retaining Qualified Special Education Personnel: Approaches from Eight State Education Agencies. inForum

Overview & Synopsis

According to the U.S. Department of Education, shortages of special education and/or related services personnel continue to be a significant challenge for all states. In response to this challenge, state education agencies (SEAs) are implementing various strategies to improve recruitment and retention efforts. The purpose of this document is to provide in-depth information on eight states' infrastructures and activities intended to address personnel shortages in the area of special education and related services. A collaboration between Project Forum and the Personnel Improvement Center (PIC) at the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE), this document was completed as part of these projects' cooperative agreements with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). A companion document, "State-Level Efforts to Recruit and Retain Qualified Special Education Personnel Including Related Service Providers", presents findings from a survey of all states and nonstate jurisdictions, and is available for free download. A table showing state-level approaches to recruitment and retention about which States were interviewed is appended. (Contains 47 footnotes.)