According to a recent report, we can tell you officially, what you already know. The US is extremely short on special needs teachers. In fact, only two states are said to not need additional teachers.
There were challenges filling these gaps before the pandemic, but the pandemic which has hurt teachers as well as students, has created even more challenges for special needs children, many of which have academic challenges as well as physical, mental, and/or emotional.
Trying to do virtual learning with a child where hands on is so needed, can be extremely frustrating. Our youngest son thought the computer “ate” his classmates the first time they tried to do Zoom with him, and he ran away screaming after just a few seconds.
While there has been a lot of talk about how to get more teachers, there isn’t always a lot of options. Teachers are having money offered to them to start in districts, however, this just moves a teacher from one district to another. It doesn’t actually fix the issue, which is getting new teachers trained and into the job (which takes time) and keeping the skilled teachers that are already there.
I’ve spoken with several teachers, both those in special needs and those not, and more than one has mentioned either retiring or looking for work outside of teaching. We need to find ways to keep those teachers, by listening to their needs, and making sure they are met, so the special needs students aren’t put into a regular classroom and expected to fend for themselves.
We need to support our special needs teachers and help them where we can. Encourage, support, and thank them for all they do. We all know that it’s hard work with our own kids, imagine having 8-10 more! Plus they have to deal with administration, which as we all know can be frustrating. They have to deal with this on a daily basis, we luckily don’t have to deal with it as often.
Many times teachers have to toe the line as their job can be on the line, so they can only push so much. They are typically not given much support from the staff and frequently get some opposition, which can cause them to become discouraged, frustrated, not appreciated, and contemplate leaving. This is one way we can help them out. Find out what they need and encourage them to ask you for help if there is something the parent can do that the teacher cannot. Let them know how much you appreciate all that you do for their child.
Here are some things we’ve done:
- Offer kind words of encouragement to them. Simply smile and talk pleasantly with them – we’ve all seen people being short with teachers. We get frustrated at life too, but we try really hard not to show it to the teachers.
- Let them know when something you/they’ve been working on is showing results e.g. When our child said thank you, or as they try new foods.
- Offering a small token (I’d love to be able to outfit a room, but we have limited resources ourselves, but we always try to find gifts for the teachers, para’s, and specialists that work with our kids for both Christmas and End of School Year)
- Let them know you’ve got their back and are willing to help (be sure to follow through), this has led to calls to admin to get things pushed that they hit roadblocks on, cutting out paper animals for projects, etc.
We love our sons’ teachers and cannot thank them enough for all they have done for our kids! Hopefully they’ll be there for years to come because they are the best!!
