Educator Shortages in Special Education - Facilitators Guide

The Educator Shortages in Special Education Toolkit is organized around the guiding principle that short-term strategies to meet immediate demand must be intentionally paired with long-term, systemic strategies to attract, prepare, and retain effective special education teachers to create comprehensive shortage solutions. The Toolkit is organized around a Facilitator's Guide and three supporting sets of tools. The Facilitator's Guide is designed to lead state teams through a collaborative process to develop a comprehensive approach for addressing special education teacher shortages. Aligned with current efforts from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs, this process intentionally examines shortages across the entire career continuum — from attracting to preparing to retaining teachers — so that all students with disabilities have access to effective teachers.