The issue isn’t that high school students aren’t interested in future careers in special education.
It’s that students are unaware those jobs exist.
“Kids don’t know about these careers,” said Jennifer Craig, director of student life at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf. “When you talk to kids about what they want to be when they grow up, they have no idea they can be a teacher of deaf and hard-of-hearing kids.”
Six Allegheny County schools — Baldwin, Bethel Park, Gateway, Hampton, West Allegheny and Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf — are accelerating efforts to build a pipeline for special education teachers.
It comes at a time where special education has a statewide vacancy rate of 3.2% — the highest of all K-12 subject areas — according to a study by Penn State’s Center for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis.
“It’s very difficult to find special education teachers now,” said Marissa Gallagher, director of student services in the Baldwin-Whitehall School District. “If we’re able to capitalize students’ interest because of the opportunities they’ve had at Baldwin-Whitehall, it meets all the needs.”
In May, the state Department of Education awarded those schools grants of up to $20,000 to support programs that build a pipeline of future special education professionals.
The Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf will hire high school students as counselors to support deaf and hard-of-hearing children during summer camp, Craig said. Counselors work alongside professional staff to lead recreational programming, communication support and group facilitation, exposing them to practices in special education.
“Being exposed to all kids, it gives you an appreciation that all these kids are the same,” she said. “They can achieve the same things, they have the same dreams and same goals.”
High school students will also be introduced to career pathways in special education with a focus on becoming teachers of deaf students and educational interpreters, Craig said. That will include an overview of required education, certification processes and professional expectations.
“We only have a couple programs in Pennsylvania that provide teachers for deaf education,” she said. “Everyone is desperate for teachers” trained in this field.
At Baldwin, high school students can take early-to-college special education and child development courses, Gallagher said. American Sign Language courses are also offered.
“The goal is not just about providing inclusive opportunities or providing a pipeline, it’s bigger than that,” Gallagher said. “It’s about creating a community where everyone belongs. Offering initiatives like the ASL Club support that, and we see it everyday.”
Baldwin hosts Special Olympics-style events for students, and plans to start a unified eSports team to include special education students. The eSports team started four years ago and is reaching students that weren’t involved in anything else at school, said Janeen Peretin, assistant to the superintendent.
“The motivation was about meeting the needs of students and allowing the opportunity to feel they belong to something greater than themselves,” Peretin said. “Unified was the next evolution of, how can we bring more students into this program?”
Bethel Park High School offers a Foundations of Special Education class in conjunction with Carlow University, said Julie Hernandez, special education teacher at Bethel Park. It teaches students about disabilities, careers and special education laws, Hernandez said.
“We’ve seen a great number of students leaving here to study special education majors, whether it’s to be a teacher, occupational therapist or speech therapy,” she said.
Bethel Park plans to provide students with job shadowing opportunities at the Pathfinder School, a specialized school for students with disabilities. They also plan to add a Unified Strength Training team this fall for regular and special education students, and expand its popular “Best Buddies” interaction club to the middle school level.
Hernandez said it will contribute to existing inclusion efforts at the school, including courses where special education students are immersed into the mainstream and other inclusive events and extracurriculars.
“Special education students get to have friendships with their peers,” Hernandez said. “The regular education students get to learn patience… This teaches them kindness and compassion.”
Fifteen graduates in West Allegheny’s Class of 2025 intended to major in special education, said Lynn Utchell, assistant to the superintendent for special education and student services. This year, there were 23 graduates who expressed interest in pursuing a career in special education.
Utchell said West Allegheny plans to expand learning experiences for students interested in pursuing a career in special education, be it through mentorship, job shadowing or educating students about careers. West Allegheny offers early-to-college special education programming with Robert Morris University.
“We can have them work with an occupational therapist, a physical therapist or the school psychologist and see a variety of options within the field,” Utchell said.
It’s built a pipeline of West Allegheny graduates who come back to work in special education for the district, said Katharine Roche, director of special projects and high school academic principal. Students with Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs, also have taken interest in special education training programs.
“It’s been empowering for students who, without these opportunities, may have flown under the radar or not realized to come back and support students where they grew up,” she said.
Gateway has a similar “grow-your-own” program for students interested in education careers in partnership with Point Park University, said teacher Mark Spinola. College credits can be earned through a disability studies course.
He hopes to combine the teacher preparation and disability studies courses with real-world experience.
“I hope my students will be prepared,” he said. “Early exposure helps mitigate the anxiety others might feel.”