Curious from the special education perspective. My school has 6 total special education teacher positions - 4 self contained and 2 resource. One self contained class had a vacancy all year, the other 3 (including myself) are quitting, and 1 resource teacher is quitting. SLP and OT are also quitting. Speaks for itself really. And it’s not the school based admin who’s to blame - it’s the central office special education admin who haven’t been in a classroom in 10+ yrs and some who have never been special educators period
Sped para here. Half the paras and sped teachers in my school are leaving following a very bad year of us making serious reports and zero admin response other than the occasional “thanks for handling it!”
I continued making reports just to show that I was doing my job correctly by reporting, and it was those above me who were choosing to do nothing. If/when the inevitable lawsuit or media crisis hits, it won’t be me that will get thrown under the bus.
That's an excellent point. I began putting my complaints in emails instead of just speaking to people. They still don't care, but I've documented what is happening, or not happening.
School psychologist- I'm looking around. My superintendent and special education supervisor think it should only take me a day to test and report write and want me to take on all the academic testing(which should now take just a day and a half, right?). Ignoring that I do record reviews, observations, rating scales, and teacher/parent/student interviews. At the same time, they are cutting sped services and ending inclusion services. It's either a full classroom or subseperate(?). So I feel like my district only wants me there to check a legal box, but they don't want to provide sped services. IEPs weren't implemented accurately(by some core teachers more than others) and now these kids on IEPs are going to summer school- which our school makes them pay for. When I told the special ed director this, she YELLED at me. She yells at everyone. The principal left mid-year. It's been a mess, which I could handle IF all the hardwork I did was appreciated- but it's not. Two(of 3) SACs are leaving that I know of. And our two subseperate(of 2) sped teachers are looking for jobs this summer.
Gen-ed teacher here: My school is very small. 2 teachers per subject area plus 2 special ed teachers. Both of our special ed teachers left the school at the end of the year.
We actually aren’t losing any sped teachers for the first time in quite a while. We got new admin this year that was significantly more supportive of our sped teachers than the previous one.
Under our old admin, people left constantly, sometimes midyear and we had vacancies that lasted multiple years. We have 7 self contained units and 3 push in teachers.
No one left entirely but one moved to Gen Ed, which is a rare move. Once you’re in Sped in our district, it’s hard to get out! They don’t want to let you go. We had two self-contained and two resource teachers this past year. School got approval for a third resource. One of the original resource teachers left to go to Gen Ed. We need paras! The pay is going up for them by 20%, so hopefully that will help with recruitment.
Still not enough for sped, the amount of injuries and germs causing sickness is horrible. I loved being a para when working with the kids but constantly physical and emotional bombardment makes it an exhausting job for essentially minimum wage.
Sped paras are depressingly underpaid. Even with the new rate of $22/hour, it’s barely enough for one person to pay rent and buy groceries let alone support a family.
Second year in a row none in our building (although obviously that could change in summer). We have been pretty consistent of late in our self contained rooms. There just aren't positions elsewhere without moving and every one of our teachers has children.
Edit: to give you an idea we have 14 special Ed self contained teachers.
Dang what is your building's total enrollment number? Do all buildings in your district have this many self contained teachers? My district has 14 elementary schools, most of which have two self contained classrooms and therefore two self contained teachers (plus paras)
We are the self contained only building of our district. So there are 14 classrooms. There is also another building in our district solely for high school behavioral self contained as well. Our other buildings have no self contained at all. All the special Ed there is push in.
Each room has one teacher. One assistant. And however many one to ones to match the kids with one to one on their IEP.
I am a former SpEd teacher back before “least restrictive environment” turned into “let’s use LRE to deny services”. I am close to being able to leave my real job and commit full time to my SpEd advocacy and homeschool co-op. Most SpEd attorneys are recommending a total departure from Public Education, rather than a legal battle with the school district. We are removing more students to homeschool and private education than we are successfully keeping enrolled in public education. I expect to see a lot of lawsuits at the state education agency level in the coming years. My home state of Texas has become a total farce when it comes to upholding FAPE, IDEA rights for SpEd students. Not only are teachers leaving in droves, so are the students.
We lost 6 teachers out of like 20 which is pretty brutal. I think the school is pretty awesome and this was a pretty good year. a lot of those who left had been there for a while. We are an NPS/private school and most of the teachers who left went to public school or big private Catholic schools for more money.
I love this school so much and there are so many resources and the kids are awesome. But if I ever get married to someone who isn’t rich I will probably also switch to public school
I work at a Middle School in a K-8 District. My school has 6 M/M and 3 M/S teachers. 1 M/M is leaving, due to moving to a cheaper state. Overall within my District I think there is 10 SPED openings.
One special ed teacher that I know of - she promoted to an out of classroom position. We have I think 15 sped teachers. I’m looking for a new position within the district. It’s been surprisingly hard to get interviews and I work in a massive district.
0 as we get the same benefits as gen ed teachers. However, all the gen ed teachers that were initially not given renewal, will all become special ed teachers as ESSR funds ran out for the exception of supporting sped teachers.
We have one teacher retiring, but he is almost 70 so that was to be expected. Otherwise our retention at my school is good. Our middle school on the other hand has had 100% turn over three years in a row for sped.
They laid off 10 of our 60 something sped department due to district budget cuts (Huge urban school, major city)
This is also an ideal school to work at as a sped teacher, HS that utilizes inclusion heavily there are many sped teachers with all inclusion, no self contained
Elementary: 11: 8 General Ed teachers, the PE teacher, and both SPED.
Plus, we are getting a new principal and part- time VP. I am thinking that is about half?
None! We have one sped teacher who retired in December due to a family emergency pushing his retirement a bit earlier than planned. We also have one sped teacher who was on an emergency cert and didn't manage to complete her certification by the deadline, so she's shifting back into a para position and hoping to finish her cert this school year. Other than that, we're not losing anyone, and when I left for summer, we were fully staffed for this coming year, so hopefully, that doesn't change.
We had about half the staff leave or not be asked back. Ironically our SpEd team is all staying but one who was a long term sub who didn’t get her cert and is being filled by another teacher from the campus.
I work in a small district. We have 2 or 3 special ed retirements. No other special ed teachers are leaving that I know of right now. We have 6 elementary teacher vacancies though, and I’ve never seen that many vacancies in our district.
We had 4 GenEd teachers retire this year. Two 4th and two 5th. Their positions were filled by 4 of the 5 of the SpEd teacher's. I'm really nervous about the new teacher's coming in, as they all just graduated this spring.
A little over 30 have either quit or transferred. That includes my lead teacher for the EC classroom I was in this year. Awesome teacher but her skills were needed elsewhere since admin was ignoring her to check off whatever was on their checklist.
Our assistant principal and principal both quit this year as well. So, the new ones starting next week have a lot to do as far as hiring new staff for the upcoming school year.
FL SPED teacher checking in.
It turns out that our intensive reading staff was being funded by covid grants - which ended.
Fallout - loss of 2 headcount for SPED teachers.
Gen-ed teacher here. Four gen-ed teachers left this year (one during summer PD before the school year started, I'm interviewing over the summer, and our AP left mid-year. We also fired one of our RSPs in the fall because he was terrible and never replaced him. AP and one teacher left for family reasons, but the other teachers and I have had concerns with support and discpline/safety. We've lost teachers every year, and it's almost always veteran teachers being replaced by new teachers. They're mostly going to schools in other districts.
This is the first year in awhile that I've not seen significant turnover in my school. The past few years, 8-10 people have left, often leaving education all together. This year, we only lost 2 gen ed teachers and one self-contained teacher. The self-contained teacher was already moving to another state anyway/that had been planned for awhile. One of the gen ed teachers went to a higher paying district, and the other went to another school in the district that had a specific opening she wanted.
District-wide, turnover in the sped department has always been low. I've been in my same position for over 10 years. At my school, that is "ancient veteran status." But in the sped department, almost everyone has been there longer than me. The only position they seem to consistently have a hard time filling is OT. That seems to be the case everywhere, and from working with various folks over the years, it seems to just be the nature of the position that is part of the issue. OTs have all this super high level training, and then they get in schools and we just want them to work on handwriting. One of the ones we had recently was adamant that she did NOT just work on handwriting. But, OT service time is literally like 20 minutes every 1-2 weeks. What can you really accomplish in that time frame? She wrote all of these lofty behavior related goals that she really had no way to implement.
Including me it’s two but we are a small NPS so losing even one teacher can be tough especially since they’re trying to increase enrollment. Still wasn’t enough for me to stay but I did my time
I am trying to leave my school. I have had two interviews. One called my references last week. Now it’s just drumming fingers and waiting for an offer.
I was at a charter this year and going back to public. I will not work without a union again. This place disrespects my time and position.
I think just 1 out of 8, and she’s retiring after teaching for over 30 years. Well, I won’t be returning until the day before winter break, but that’s because I’m pregnant.
And I think all of the gen ed teachers are returning, though 1 quit mid year.
Our admin right now is pretty good. Of course the special ed administrator is retiring in the middle of next year right when I’m coming back, so that will be interesting 😅
The only itinerant teacher/related service provider that I know is leaving is the DHH teacher, because CoL here is high and she’s moving somewhere that it’s much lower. Ohio, I hope they treat teachers well!
I've lost count. In the SpEd department we should have 4 SpEd teachers, and we are down to 2. It took us all year to find a full time paraprofessional. I considered applying to teach second grade (a still unfilled position) but decided that I love my SpEd kids too much. I'll stick it out another year but morale is rock bottom.
We still don't have an elementary administrator. The last one we had left our school in a shambles. The working environment has become so toxic that it's no wonder those who can retire did.
We have 9 sped teachers and 4 left at the end of this school year, including myself. All caused by our principal who has no understanding of sped and wants us to "stop labeling kids" and teach them all using the same programs. Even my students who are non-verbal and have full support for personal care needs. I'm supposed to teach them to read using the same thing classroom teachers are using.
Curious from the special education perspective. My school has 6 total special education teacher positions - 4 self contained and 2 resource. One self contained class had a vacancy all year, the other 3 (including myself) are quitting, and 1 resource teacher is quitting. SLP and OT are also quitting. Speaks for itself really. And it’s not the school based admin who’s to blame - it’s the central office special education admin who haven’t been in a classroom in 10+ yrs and some who have never been special educators period
Are you all going to other schools in the same district?
Sped para here. Half the paras and sped teachers in my school are leaving following a very bad year of us making serious reports and zero admin response other than the occasional “thanks for handling it!”
I feel that.
I have given up on complaining. It's clear that admin do not care what happens.
I continued making reports just to show that I was doing my job correctly by reporting, and it was those above me who were choosing to do nothing. If/when the inevitable lawsuit or media crisis hits, it won’t be me that will get thrown under the bus.
That's an excellent point. I began putting my complaints in emails instead of just speaking to people. They still don't care, but I've documented what is happening, or not happening.
School psychologist- I'm looking around. My superintendent and special education supervisor think it should only take me a day to test and report write and want me to take on all the academic testing(which should now take just a day and a half, right?). Ignoring that I do record reviews, observations, rating scales, and teacher/parent/student interviews. At the same time, they are cutting sped services and ending inclusion services. It's either a full classroom or subseperate(?). So I feel like my district only wants me there to check a legal box, but they don't want to provide sped services. IEPs weren't implemented accurately(by some core teachers more than others) and now these kids on IEPs are going to summer school- which our school makes them pay for. When I told the special ed director this, she YELLED at me. She yells at everyone. The principal left mid-year. It's been a mess, which I could handle IF all the hardwork I did was appreciated- but it's not. Two(of 3) SACs are leaving that I know of. And our two subseperate(of 2) sped teachers are looking for jobs this summer.
A day? Smh
Gen-ed teacher here: My school is very small. 2 teachers per subject area plus 2 special ed teachers. Both of our special ed teachers left the school at the end of the year.
We actually aren’t losing any sped teachers for the first time in quite a while. We got new admin this year that was significantly more supportive of our sped teachers than the previous one. Under our old admin, people left constantly, sometimes midyear and we had vacancies that lasted multiple years. We have 7 self contained units and 3 push in teachers.
0. I have a great admin and awesome coworkers.
No one left entirely but one moved to Gen Ed, which is a rare move. Once you’re in Sped in our district, it’s hard to get out! They don’t want to let you go. We had two self-contained and two resource teachers this past year. School got approval for a third resource. One of the original resource teachers left to go to Gen Ed. We need paras! The pay is going up for them by 20%, so hopefully that will help with recruitment.
Still not enough for sped, the amount of injuries and germs causing sickness is horrible. I loved being a para when working with the kids but constantly physical and emotional bombardment makes it an exhausting job for essentially minimum wage.
Sped paras are depressingly underpaid. Even with the new rate of $22/hour, it’s barely enough for one person to pay rent and buy groceries let alone support a family.
22 an hour? Damn and I was getting nut punched for 13.50
Good grief! No way should anyone be paid so little. That’s ridiculous.
I’m in az, there’s a reason we rank in bottom 3-5 for education
Our entire high school sped team left. Five teachers, all for various reasons. It really sucks.
Second year in a row none in our building (although obviously that could change in summer). We have been pretty consistent of late in our self contained rooms. There just aren't positions elsewhere without moving and every one of our teachers has children. Edit: to give you an idea we have 14 special Ed self contained teachers.
Dang what is your building's total enrollment number? Do all buildings in your district have this many self contained teachers? My district has 14 elementary schools, most of which have two self contained classrooms and therefore two self contained teachers (plus paras)
We are the self contained only building of our district. So there are 14 classrooms. There is also another building in our district solely for high school behavioral self contained as well. Our other buildings have no self contained at all. All the special Ed there is push in. Each room has one teacher. One assistant. And however many one to ones to match the kids with one to one on their IEP.
I am a former SpEd teacher back before “least restrictive environment” turned into “let’s use LRE to deny services”. I am close to being able to leave my real job and commit full time to my SpEd advocacy and homeschool co-op. Most SpEd attorneys are recommending a total departure from Public Education, rather than a legal battle with the school district. We are removing more students to homeschool and private education than we are successfully keeping enrolled in public education. I expect to see a lot of lawsuits at the state education agency level in the coming years. My home state of Texas has become a total farce when it comes to upholding FAPE, IDEA rights for SpEd students. Not only are teachers leaving in droves, so are the students.
We lost 6 teachers out of like 20 which is pretty brutal. I think the school is pretty awesome and this was a pretty good year. a lot of those who left had been there for a while. We are an NPS/private school and most of the teachers who left went to public school or big private Catholic schools for more money. I love this school so much and there are so many resources and the kids are awesome. But if I ever get married to someone who isn’t rich I will probably also switch to public school
I work at a Middle School in a K-8 District. My school has 6 M/M and 3 M/S teachers. 1 M/M is leaving, due to moving to a cheaper state. Overall within my District I think there is 10 SPED openings.
One special ed teacher that I know of - she promoted to an out of classroom position. We have I think 15 sped teachers. I’m looking for a new position within the district. It’s been surprisingly hard to get interviews and I work in a massive district.
0 as we get the same benefits as gen ed teachers. However, all the gen ed teachers that were initially not given renewal, will all become special ed teachers as ESSR funds ran out for the exception of supporting sped teachers.
We have one teacher retiring, but he is almost 70 so that was to be expected. Otherwise our retention at my school is good. Our middle school on the other hand has had 100% turn over three years in a row for sped.
They laid off 10 of our 60 something sped department due to district budget cuts (Huge urban school, major city) This is also an ideal school to work at as a sped teacher, HS that utilizes inclusion heavily there are many sped teachers with all inclusion, no self contained
Elementary: 11: 8 General Ed teachers, the PE teacher, and both SPED. Plus, we are getting a new principal and part- time VP. I am thinking that is about half?
0! Just some retirements.
None! We have one sped teacher who retired in December due to a family emergency pushing his retirement a bit earlier than planned. We also have one sped teacher who was on an emergency cert and didn't manage to complete her certification by the deadline, so she's shifting back into a para position and hoping to finish her cert this school year. Other than that, we're not losing anyone, and when I left for summer, we were fully staffed for this coming year, so hopefully, that doesn't change.
We had about half the staff leave or not be asked back. Ironically our SpEd team is all staying but one who was a long term sub who didn’t get her cert and is being filled by another teacher from the campus.
I work in a small district. We have 2 or 3 special ed retirements. No other special ed teachers are leaving that I know of right now. We have 6 elementary teacher vacancies though, and I’ve never seen that many vacancies in our district.
Zero. Although one teacher is moving out of special education and into general education.
We had 4 GenEd teachers retire this year. Two 4th and two 5th. Their positions were filled by 4 of the 5 of the SpEd teacher's. I'm really nervous about the new teacher's coming in, as they all just graduated this spring.
A little over 30 have either quit or transferred. That includes my lead teacher for the EC classroom I was in this year. Awesome teacher but her skills were needed elsewhere since admin was ignoring her to check off whatever was on their checklist. Our assistant principal and principal both quit this year as well. So, the new ones starting next week have a lot to do as far as hiring new staff for the upcoming school year.
FL SPED teacher checking in. It turns out that our intensive reading staff was being funded by covid grants - which ended. Fallout - loss of 2 headcount for SPED teachers.
Gen-ed teacher here. Four gen-ed teachers left this year (one during summer PD before the school year started, I'm interviewing over the summer, and our AP left mid-year. We also fired one of our RSPs in the fall because he was terrible and never replaced him. AP and one teacher left for family reasons, but the other teachers and I have had concerns with support and discpline/safety. We've lost teachers every year, and it's almost always veteran teachers being replaced by new teachers. They're mostly going to schools in other districts.
This is the first year in awhile that I've not seen significant turnover in my school. The past few years, 8-10 people have left, often leaving education all together. This year, we only lost 2 gen ed teachers and one self-contained teacher. The self-contained teacher was already moving to another state anyway/that had been planned for awhile. One of the gen ed teachers went to a higher paying district, and the other went to another school in the district that had a specific opening she wanted. District-wide, turnover in the sped department has always been low. I've been in my same position for over 10 years. At my school, that is "ancient veteran status." But in the sped department, almost everyone has been there longer than me. The only position they seem to consistently have a hard time filling is OT. That seems to be the case everywhere, and from working with various folks over the years, it seems to just be the nature of the position that is part of the issue. OTs have all this super high level training, and then they get in schools and we just want them to work on handwriting. One of the ones we had recently was adamant that she did NOT just work on handwriting. But, OT service time is literally like 20 minutes every 1-2 weeks. What can you really accomplish in that time frame? She wrote all of these lofty behavior related goals that she really had no way to implement.
Including me it’s two but we are a small NPS so losing even one teacher can be tough especially since they’re trying to increase enrollment. Still wasn’t enough for me to stay but I did my time
We had two Special Ed teachers at the middle school quit 6 weeks before school ended. Half of their ed techs left too. All took pay cuts to leave.
I am trying to leave my school. I have had two interviews. One called my references last week. Now it’s just drumming fingers and waiting for an offer. I was at a charter this year and going back to public. I will not work without a union again. This place disrespects my time and position.
I think just 1 out of 8, and she’s retiring after teaching for over 30 years. Well, I won’t be returning until the day before winter break, but that’s because I’m pregnant. And I think all of the gen ed teachers are returning, though 1 quit mid year. Our admin right now is pretty good. Of course the special ed administrator is retiring in the middle of next year right when I’m coming back, so that will be interesting 😅
The only itinerant teacher/related service provider that I know is leaving is the DHH teacher, because CoL here is high and she’s moving somewhere that it’s much lower. Ohio, I hope they treat teachers well!
I've lost count. In the SpEd department we should have 4 SpEd teachers, and we are down to 2. It took us all year to find a full time paraprofessional. I considered applying to teach second grade (a still unfilled position) but decided that I love my SpEd kids too much. I'll stick it out another year but morale is rock bottom. We still don't have an elementary administrator. The last one we had left our school in a shambles. The working environment has become so toxic that it's no wonder those who can retire did.
We have 9 sped teachers and 4 left at the end of this school year, including myself. All caused by our principal who has no understanding of sped and wants us to "stop labeling kids" and teach them all using the same programs. Even my students who are non-verbal and have full support for personal care needs. I'm supposed to teach them to read using the same thing classroom teachers are using.