Part challenge, all joy

Susie Brott knows why she became a special education teacher.

The challenge of trying to teach disabled children and help them become more independent excited her. Brott wanted to help the public school system’s most disadvantaged children, and she knew the success of doing so would bring her joy.

But having been at it since 1983, she also knows why so many of her colleagues leave their jobs and why school officials across the nation rank special education teachers as some of the most difficult to recruit.

“The emotional part of special ed is pretty great,” Brott said. “But for as much as there are days that are difficult, it’s the best place to be in the world because of the growth you see the kids do.”

Brott and her assistants at Coeur d’Alene’s Fernan Elementary School are exceptions to what has become a norm among public education teachers. She and her six assistants have been in their positions for years, the last joining five years ago. None has plans to leave. The work is too rewarding, they say.

Increasingly, others are making a different choice. Some are leaving the special education setting for the regular classroom. But most alarming, educators say, is that fewer people seem to be going into the profession in the first place.

Thirty-four states, including Washington and Idaho, reported a shortage of special education teachers in the last school year, according to the U.S Department of Education. The job has ranked in the top 10 most difficult positions to fill in Idaho for five years, holding the No. 1 spot the past two years, according to the state Department of Education.

The story is similar in Washington. Retention is only half the equation, said Lise Louer, assistant superintendent at Central Valley School District in Spokane Valley. Recruitment is the other, and it far outranks retention, she said.

Of the 65 special education teachers in the Central Valley district last year, five didn’t return this school year. That’s about an 8 percent turnover rate, only slightly higher than regular teaching jobs, but higher nonetheless, Louer said. Filling those positions “isn’t a crisis, but it’s a concern,” she said.

“We would like to see more people go into this arena. It’s a very important job, and it’s a challenging job with a lot of legal requirements,” Louer said. “The turnover is to be expected. It’s a concern because we’re not seeing a very large applicant pool.”

While a regular teaching job in his district can bring in 80 applications, special education jobs attract very few, said Jerry Keane, the Post Falls School District superintendent.

“In some cases, we’re happy we got any,” Keane said.

Teachers may shy away from special education for several reasons, educators say. For one, the certification requirements have grown more stringent. Federal law requires they be certified in special education plus another area of study such as math, science or social studies. That pushes many into the general education setting instead.

Also, special education laws require teachers to complete extensive paperwork, much more than when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act mandated equal education access for the disabled in 1975. Each student in special education has an individual education plan, and teachers must make daily notes on student progress.

“The sheer amount of paperwork – it’s extraordinary,” Brott said. “That in itself is a whole other job.”

And it’s a big reason people leave, said Hazel Bauman, Coeur d’Alene School District’s assistant superintendent.

“Their time is really challenged. They want to be with kids. That’s why they went into teaching,” Bauman said.

“Yet the demands and paperwork are so ever-present and legal,” she said. “We do see requests every year from special education teachers to move into what we call regular education because of all the additional demands.”

That includes physical and emotional demands. Brott’s students – her “kiddos” – vary in intellectual and physical ability. Some are in wheelchairs and require physical assistance. Others have mental disabilities that make communicating difficult.

Some spend just a couple of hours in the special education room and the rest of their time in the regular classroom with an aide. Others are in the special education room the bulk of their days.

“What I expect from one student is very different than what I expect from another student,” Brott said. “There are different goals for everyone.”

This can make the special education setting a difficult place to be at times, she said, because students with demanding disabilities require different assistance at the same time. Some of Brott’s students require special foods and need help eating. Others aren’t toilet-trained.

Behavior problems can arise minute by minute. And it’s difficult to know what students are feeling at times because their disabilities often hinder communication. Students and staff know some sign language, which Brott said can help staff more than students.

“We sign in here quite a bit, mostly telling others we need to go to the bathroom or we need help,” she said.

While some special education teachers address students with mild learning disabilities, Brott is a life skills special education teacher. Her job is to teach students to be self-sufficient. The challenges are enormous, but the rewards unparalleled, she said.

Nicholas Rea, who started at Fernan in the developmental preschool, is “one of our kiddos that keeps us coming back,” she said.

Wheelchair-bound, Nicholas couldn’t lift his head or make eye contact when spoken to. A year later, with the help of a walker, the 8-year-old can walk more than a few steps.

“That’s the kind of stuff that keeps you coming back,” Brott said.

“Certainly not the poopy diapers,” assistant Valerie Ordway said with a laugh.

Every week, Brott drafts a tentative lesson and activity plan. Each day is different. One recent morning, Brott and her assistants helped their students mix cookie dough.

Nicholas joined kindergartner Kassie Kieleock, fourth-graders Kaitlyn Johnson and Zoie Jones, and fifth-grader Andy Harris as they sat around a table, passing the bowl of dough and taking turns mixing as everyone counted aloud.

“Kaitlyn, thank you for counting. Here you go: special treat,” Brott said, handing the smiling girl a chocolate chip.

For Nicholas, who doesn’t speak, just gripping the stirring spoon was a feat.

“That’s huge, him holding onto the spoon,” Ordway said.

“Lots of life skills are captured in this one activity,” Brott explained. “Turn-taking, communication, teamwork, verbalization.”

Efforts to encourage more young people to enter the special education field can’t capture the joy of the job, Brott said, because it’s not something that can be taught. But school officials say more money and a reduced workload are among the incentives that can keep special education teachers on the job and encourage more to enter the profession.

Mike Ainsworth, executive director of student support services for Spokane Public Schools, said Spokane doesn’t face the recruiting and retention problems for special education teachers that other districts do. The district’s size and proximity to Gonzaga University and Washington State University, schools that produce special education teachers, make job openings easy to fill with quality people, he said.

“Many school districts do not have those kinds of options,” Ainsworth said.

How to make up for that is a question school officials around the country are asking. Although the job demands can be greater for special education teachers, their pay is equal to that of a regular classroom teacher. In Idaho, the starting salary for teachers is $30,000. In Washington, it’s $31,386.

“And that’s something we’re looking at,” said Coeur d’Alene’s Bauman. “We’re looking at it as a state, and we’re looking at it as a district: Is there a way to differentiate a compensation package for special ed teachers?”

The Coeur d’Alene district does give special education teachers some extra days to do paperwork. But the turnover and recruitment problems show it’s not enough, Bauman said.

There’s talk of hiring more assistants for the teachers and shifting routine paperwork to clerical staff. “We’re just constrained by money,” Bauman said.

While Brott welcomes additional pay and extra help, she agrees with other educators who say there’s no one solution to the teacher shortage. There’s no way to teach people the joy of the job; they have to experience it, she said.

“You feel it in your heart.”