UH College of Education #7
The SPEDucator Project
SUMMARY
Although the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted public education for everyone, this was especially true for those in special education. This period of uncertainty, combined with personal and professional stress, caused even the most skilled special education teachers to question whether they could make it through the year. As the teaching field with the worst shortages and highest attrition rates, the SPEDucator Project aimed to address the recruitment to retention pipeline through community-building and efforts to uplift the profession. Led by a current Hawai‘i special education teacher and the UH Manoa special education recruitment specialist, this collective included 15 high-quality special education teachers who represent 5 islands and 13 of 15 complex areas across the state. Together, they represent the broad scope of what special education covers, including all grade levels, placement types, and years of experience with a goal of supporting others in the state on topics unique to this field.
PROJECT LEAD : Janet Kim
CONTACT :
janetmc@hawaii.edu
(808) 554-5206
OUTCOME :
Recruitment Outcomes: We developed 4 new recruitment videos highlighting current special education teachers, students, and their families to promote the field of special education and help positively change the narrative in Hawai‘i. Our "Who should become a special education teacher?" campaign video reached over 7,300 views. We revamped and extended our campaign website (someonespecialforstudents.com) to provide more information, support, and resources for those considering joining this profession. In addition, we ran radio advertisements across four local stations that recruited people into UH Mānoa’s special education licensure programs.
Retention Outcomes: We hosted 4 "SPEDucation Series" professional development seminars supporting 111 educators across Hawai‘i. Our May project newsletter reached 350 views and our project mailing list has 116 subscribers, including special education and general education teachers, HIDOE administrators, students, faculty, and community members. Lastly, our first face-to-face SPEDucator Connection event supported over 100 participants, including 17 individuals from neighboring islands. As one participant shared, “Thank you so much for all of your hard work in putting this event together. It was SOOOOO inspirational. I definitely will be joining any other event that will occur. You have truly helped me to see the light through my darkness. I was ready to quit. I was trying to find a reason to stay. Also, thank you for giving me an opportunity to participate in this event and "CHARGE MY BATTERIES" in this field of special education.” This feedback validates the need to continue and grow this type of community.
Lastly, the goal of this project was to support and nurture special education teacher leaders. All 15 SPEDucators attended the Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC) Annual Conference in person or virtually. Despite the format, all the SPEDucators shared that attending the conference was rejuvenating and helped them to better their own practices in the field. As a result of this opportunity, leadership from the national CEC organization has offered to support the SPEDucator Project and is helping to merge this project within the Hawai‘i CEC unit. This merge will allow this project to continue longterm, even after the grant period is finished.
LESSONS LEARNED :
Opportunities: Our primary takeaway is that intentional and purposeful community-building is an effective strategy for addressing teacher retention. This project allowed our collective to better understand the variables that make special education so challenging, and validated the use of community building as a method for countering attrition and burnout. Creating a space for special education teachers to share and support one another, while representing the multiple facets of what makes special education unique, has provided notable insight into better understanding and addressing shortages in this field. Providing special education teachers the opportunity to share their struggles and successes and support one another through peer-to-peer professional learning opportunities can help counter burn-out related to more compliance-focused agendas.
Challenges: The tri-level system within the DOE can make implementing and navigating innovation difficult. As a project that intentionally recruited individuals from different islands and complexes, we encountered both barriers and inequities. For example, one SPEDucator struggled to complete requested paperwork, as her rural & remote school only had access to the HIDOE mail courier once per month (pandemic courier issue), compared to at least once per week for schools on Oahu. In addition, information for processes and completion of required paperwork can be extremely challenging, given that complexes and even schools, process and interpret the completion of the paperwork differently. This led to numerous submissions and delays, which was a deterrent to administrators who had to sign the paperwork by hand in blue ink each time changes were made. Because digital signatures are not accepted, if any changes were made, the paperwork had to be restarted and had to move up all three levels for new signatures each time. This made processes less efficient and added unnecessary stress to everyone involved.
PROJECT LINKS:
UH Mānoa, College of Education News Announcement
Previous recognition prior to grant
Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) 100 Stories Recognition:
HIDOE Ho‘oha‘aheo Newsletter shared our project video of one of our SPEDucators, Kristel Brogdon and her Passion Project.