As the state Department of Education pushes out nearly $1.5 million in grants to help grow the special educator workforce, Western Pennsylvania schools are taking advantage.
More than 75 universities and K-12 schools will benefit from the grants — including Bethel Park, Mt. Pleasant Area, Plum and Pittsburgh Public school districts. The funding will support programs for students to learn about the special education field and collaborate with students.
Plum School District — which received nearly $19,000 through the program — wasted no time in applying for the funds, said Preston Hartman, director of K-12 virtual learning.
“We saw the opportunity and we recognize the need for educators coming through the pipeline into the workforce,” Hartman said. “We thought this was an opportunity to help with that process.”
About 2,150 teaching positions were vacant in Pennsylvania as of October, according to data from the State Department of Education.
About 1,000 of those vacancies were in special education, according to Ed Fuller, a professor of education at Penn State who has researched the statewide teacher vacancies.
The state data indicates six in 10 of those positions were filled with a substitute teacher, while 40% remained vacant — resolved by teachers covering classes during their free periods or students being assigned to other sections of a course.
Plum to bolster clubs
Plum’s grant allocation will support the district’s Future Educators of America, Best Buddies and Unified sports programs, Hartman said.
The district established a Unified bocce team at the high school two years ago, bringing together special and regular education students. The team is part of the Unified Champion Schools program, an initiative by the Special Olympics to make schools more inclusive.
With the help of the state grant, the high school will add a Unified track and field team this academic year.
Future Educators of America — a club for students interested in the education field — and Best Buddies — a global nonprofit dedicated to creating social and economic opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities — have been in the district for a number of years, Hartman said.
“This grant provides us the opportunity to expand those clubs and provide more offerings to support students,” he said.
This may include opportunities for students to visit local universities’ special education programs and help with programs at the district’s elementary schools, Hartman said.
“We have a group of students that are interested in education and special ed,” he said. “Let’s give them as many opportunities while they are in this building to support them.”
Mt. Pleasant collaborative spaces
Anna Hare is proud of the amount of opportunities Mt. Pleasant Area School District has for special and regular education students to work together.
The high school’s Blue Shirts program, for example, has gathered nearly 80 students to assist special education students throughout the school day.
“We have a lot of opportunities for inclusiveness within the school district,” said Hare, Mt. Pleasant’s supervisor of special education. “It’s amazing to see.”
The $20,000 state grant will only help the district continue the trend, she said.
The district will use the funds to create a “What I Need” room and a school store at the high school.
The What I Need, or WIN, room will serve as a study space in the library for students of all abilities to work together.
“It could be a collaborative project that they’re all meeting together to discuss,” she said.
Hare said she plans to have teachers from special education, the gifted program and regular classrooms staff the WIN room throughout the day to assist students who may need additional learning support.
Hare envisions special education students, aspiring educators and students in the school’s digital art or entrepreneurship classes working together to run the school store.
“I think it’s going to give them more opportunities to meet and see the (special education) students and interact with them in different ways, as opposed to only being down in a life skills class,” Hare said of the initiatives.
Bethel Park class
Bethel Park High School received a grant from the same state program last year, said special education teacher Julie Hernandez. She is already noticing a change in the student body from the extra funds.
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“It’s doing its job,” Hernandez said of the grant. “It’s changing kids’ minds about what they want to be.”
The $20,000 grant will help Hernandez kick-start a special education class where high school students can earn college credits at a reduced rate.
Hernandez plans to model the class after Carlow University’s “Foundations of Special Education” course. She hopes to pitch it to the school board in the fall for students to start enrolling in the 2025-26 academic year.
“Students will get a feel for what it’s like to be a special education teacher,” she said. “They’ll learn about the different disabilities and get experience in different types of classes.”
Hernandez aims to organize opportunities for students to explore the special education field outside of the classroom — such as bringing in career speakers and arranging visits for students to explore local universities’ special education programs.
Bethel Park’s peer class program also will benefit from the grant. The program pairs special and regular education students for select classes, including gym, music and art.
“The idea with this is to have fun,” said Hernandez, proposing the funds could be used to purchase new class materials or cover the cost of a field trip.
The funding will also support Bethel Park’s Best Buddies Club, which has amassed 140 students since it came to the district five years ago, Hernandez said.
“We went from having to beg kids to get involved to now, we’re kind of bursting at the seams with kids.”
Club members — special and regular education students — organize monthly activities, such as attending school sporting events, participating in bowling matches with Baldwin High School and visiting a pumpkin patch in the fall, Hernandez said.
Hernandez also plans to add to Bethel Park’s Unified bocce team by starting a Unified flag football team in the fall.
While Hartman is excited about the opportunities Plum is offering to expose students to the special education field, he is encouraged to see districts, such as Bethel Park, take similar actions across the state.
“It’s great to see other districts working toward the same collective goal for our commonwealth to try to provide the best educators possible for future generations,” he said.
Surge in teacher departures
The rate of Pennsylvania teachers leaving the profession this past school year was one of the highest the state has seen since 2014, according to recent research published by a Penn State professor.
In the 2023-24 school year, 6.7% of teachers left the profession, according to Ed Fuller, a professor of education at Penn State.
This is a 1% decrease from the year prior, when the highest teacher attrition rate in a decade was recorded.
“Coupled with an increase in the number of newly certified teachers, this decrease should help slightly reduce the teacher shortage,” Fuller said.
But with Black and Hispanic teachers generating higher attrition rates than their white counterparts, the population of teachers of color could be in jeopardy, he said.
Black teachers left the field at a rate 7.4 percentage points higher than their white counterparts in the 2023-24 school year, the data states. The Hispanic teacher attrition rate was 5.6 percentage points higher than the rate for white teachers.
In schools where more than 65% of students are people of color, teachers left the profession twice as often as teachers working at schools with 35% students of color, according to the data. Teachers working in low-income districts saw an attrition rate 2.3 percentage points higher than in wealthier districts.
“Without strategies and policies to reduce the attrition of Black and Hispanic teachers, we will never be able to increase the number of teachers of color sufficiently,” he said.
Philadelphia County saw the highest teacher attrition rate, 12.9%, in the 2023-24 academic year, according to Fuller’s report.
An average attrition rate of 5.1% was seen across 11 counties in the southwestern sector of the state — Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Somerset, Washington and Westmoreland.
Westmoreland County reported a 4.2% attrition rate and Allegheny reported 5.9%.
For the past two years, 3.2% of teachers across the state have switched to a teaching position at a different school district, the report states. This is the highest rate seen in the past decade, 1.8 percentage points higher than in 2014.
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In addition to placing a financial strain on districts, teacher attrition and turnover negatively affect teacher quality and student success, Fuller writes in the report.
“High rates of teacher attrition and turnover often result in inexperienced or under-qualified teachers being hired,” the report states. “This churn also disrupts the relationships among adults at the school and between teachers and students which are necessary for a well-functioning school.”
To combat attrition and turnover, Fuller suggests increasing teacher salaries; creating stipends for teachers working in schools struggling to reach adequate staffing; implementing a statewide survey on teacher working conditions; funding a campaign to elevate the profession; and requiring leadership programs to teach district administrators how to create a positive working environment.
Quincey Reese is a TribLive reporter covering the Greensburg and Hempfield areas. She also does reporting for the Penn-Trafford Star. A Penn Township native, she joined the Trib in 2023 after working as a Jim Borden Scholarship intern at the company for two summers. She can be reached at qreese@triblive.com.