Special Education – We support the rights of all students to receive a free, appropriate public education in an environment that is least restrictive to meet their individual needs. Our goal is to prepare them to contribute and serve their community with dignity and pride.

Staff work to ensure that high quality special education services are provided in a consistent and integrated manner. Our leaders cultivate transparent, open and accessible communication to ensure that parents, guardians and community members trust the integrity of the school system and are active and valuable partners.

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Special Education

Eligibility Services / Eligibility For Special Education

Children with disabilities from birth to age 21 may qualify for special education. Eligible preschoolers often receive special education services in public schools. School-aged children may receive services at school, at home, or both. Students with disabilities who attend private or religious schools may also be eligible for special education services.

Offers a wide variety of programs for children ages birth-21. Programs address a range of needs, including those related to language, hearing, vision, physical, cognitive, communication, social or emotional, and developmental.

Provides for the development of special and inclusive education services for all students with disabilities. Services and placements from indirect services through residential services.

The Family Support and Resource Center is designed to help families of children with special needs. Services include tutoring, IEP assistance, IFSP assistance, newsletters, a lending library, conducting parent support groups, and community resources and referral services. The center is open during the school year, Monday through Friday, and in the summer by appointment.

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Behavior Talks is a series of short workshops developed by staff. Each video provides valuable tips to promote student success related to behavior, social/emotional needs, organization/autonomy at home, and more.

Child Find is a service established by the State of Maryland to locate, identify, and evaluate children with disabilities.

The MSDE Family Support Section of the Family Support and Dispute Resolution Branch, answers parents’ questions, assists parents in navigating Maryland’s first intervention and special education system, and provides parents with administrative resources of the school. Almost every country has a shortage of special teachers, and the salary is just another problem, Elizabeth Bettini says. Photo by zoranm/iStock

Education Almost Every State Needs Special Ed Teachers. How Can They Find Them? Elizabeth Bettini says more money and more school support is the answer

Special Education Teacher(set) Model

As a special education teacher in Arizona for the past twelve years, Elizabeth Bettini worked with middle school students who were considered a danger to themselves or others. Another “made credible threats and was able to use weapons,” he recalls of his emotionally demanding work. t that wasn’t the hard part.

As a special education teacher, Elizabeth Bettini had to arrive at school early to have time to plan lessons; long days and difficult working conditions have caused a special shortage of teachers across the country. Image courtesy of Bettini

Children,” said Bettini. “You can handle that emotional need if you have time” to plan lessons and de-stress. However, while his contract guaranteed that time, the guarantee was based on the assumption that his students could do without him during his planning period—an incorrect assumption. when considering issues of the behavior of others. He often missed his design class. Bettini says: “I used to go to school around 4:30 in the morning and preach before going to school. “It’s been 11 years since I taught, and I still have a dream, once a week, that I’m still at school and I’m not prepared for my lessons.”

Difficult working conditions like this lead to a great shortage of special education teachers, says Bettini, Wheelock College of Education & Human Development assistant professor of special education. In the latest academic year-2021-22-48 it reports deficits. Others spoke to “emergency” teachers, who receive temporary teaching permits while still seeking professional certification, a practice that educators do not have. you like for part-time students.

Special Education (b.a.)

Federal law recognizes 13 disabilities as requiring special education, including autism; hearing and vision impairment; different emotional/intellectual/learning disabilities; and speech or language impairment. In 2020, Hawaii began paying special educators $10,000 a year. Before the salary increase, about 30 percent of the openings in the district were left open or were being used by unlicensed persons; the increase cut that proportion in half. there is a lot to be done, says Bettini, who spoke with him recently

Bettini: Very strong. It’s very difficult to measure, because you have to measure [whether] the district applied for an opening and no one applied? Or does it mean they end up hiring someone who wasn’t certified or qualified—for example, people with an emergency permit? [t]he teachers have been reporting, since COVID, an increased desire to travel; special education administrators [are] reporting that they cannot find staff to fill positions. One of the best papers on the subject examined [Boston Public Schools] and found, by contrast, that there are very few applicants for special education positions. . Several reviews focused on Massachusetts. In a 2015 study, researchers documented a large gap between the number of special educators the country will need and the number being produced. That gap is particularly large in severe disabilities—mental retardation, multiple disabilities—as well as in rural schools and very poor schools.

Bettini: Before 1975, there was no [government] requirement for schools to serve students with disabilities. From the beginning, there has been a shortage of people equipped to do so. Often, there is an additional aspect without changing the school or making it an inclusive place—we will find someone who can take care of these children and leave them alone. There has been an increasing emphasis on inclusive schools; we have schools that do it well, and we have many schools that are words, not things they live in. I will give you one example. Lessons are often not available everywhere. Say I get a textbook and a student workbook, and I have a blind student; it’s rare that it comes with an audio disc or file that I can use. In Arizona, I taught students with emotional and behavioral and learning disabilities. I had fifth or sixth graders at the kindergarten [reading] level. The tests that came with our teaching materials I had to read out loud to the students, or record them. You always prepare everything including your student. Places that do these things well tend to be more affluent. In special education law, the way to get schools to change their systems is through parent advocacy. If parents do not force the school, there is no impetus for change, and the parents best equipped to do so are generally educated, wealthy parents who can hire lawyers.

Today: Is one of the reasons why there is a shortage of special education teachers because these children present challenges that students in general do not?

The Basic Types Of Special Needs: A Guide To Special Education

Bettini: No. That is a common misconception. There is no evidence that student characteristics make people leave, except that teachers tend to leave when working with many students with emotional disabilities. [Otherwise], for special educators, the higher the number of children with disabilities they work with, the more likely they will stay. If you go into special ed, you want to work with children with disabilities. The one exception is that teachers are more likely to drop out when working with more students with emotional disabilities, in such cases, I still believe it has more to do with the lack of support to teach the students. those, than students. see. As I said, I loved my students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, as well as my colleagues. They were beautiful children. Effectively teaching students with disabilities requires knowledge and skills. If you have a fifth grader in first grade, you have to have great language skills, phonics and reading instruction, as well as behavioral control, because they will probably be working. if they struggle a lot. Being a good special education teacher – people reduce it to just personal qualities, like patience and love, ignorance and advanced knowledge.

Bettini: That’s right. Typically, they are not former special educators. I have a family member who was a principal and a superintendent and he said to me, “Special educators, they are very patient, they are usually not that smart.” That is not true. There is a feeling that you are a babysitter.

Today: There’s this popular feeling that the problem is that we label everything as special, even the non-disabled things we pass on. Is there anything to that?

Bettini: It’s a very difficult thing to investigate, because it requires you to be hypocritical: if this child had not been drafted, would they have done better than if they had been drafted? What I can tell you is that the rates of

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