North Carolina schools are scrambling to hire special education teachers. Parents write complaints

North Carolina schools are increasingly struggling to hire and retain qualified special education teachers, leaving some students without properly trained teachers who know how to provide specialized services.

The worsening shortage of such teachers also leaves schools vulnerable to state scrutiny over whether they are complying with special education law, state records show.

There is no official data on how often people complain about unqualified staff providing special education services. But a review of state records shows it’s happening frequently across the state, and that schools are increasingly at risk of violating state and federal guidelines.

Just last month, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction found that a Wake County elementary school violated state and federal law when it failed to provide special education services through a certified special education teacher.

Violation of the school system’s legislation on special education regarding staff qualifications was also discovered last year. And in recent years, so have other North Carolina school systems and charter schools, according to DPI records that outline corrective actions for the schools.

A Wake County teacher and parent told WRAL News they are concerned that children with disabilities are being cheated. Special education teachers serve students with disabilities, providing them with adaptive learning methods and monitoring the implementation of individual educational programs of students. These programs outline the accommodations students need to meet the goals agreed upon by their parents and teachers. Without them, students with disabilities will have to learn from people who are not trained to understand their disabilities or modify instruction for them, risking those goals being met and making it difficult for them to advance in the public school system.

Terri Schmitz, a fourth-grade teacher at Swift Creek Elementary School in Garner, said she was asked to provide special education services to three students last school year despite not having a special education certificate. She was asked after her school was without a full-time special education teacher for grades above kindergarten for more than a year, according to state education officials. During that time, the classroom teacher was a longtime substitute, records show. In February, the school hired a full-time teacher who received an emergency “permit to teach” license and was not certified to provide special education services.

To make up for the lack of qualified staff, the school system had a certified teacher oversee the services, records show. The teacher was instructed to meet once a month with the deputy and the emergency teacher and help make lesson plans.

Schmitz said that wasn’t enough, so she filed a complaint with the Department of Public Instruction, which oversees the state’s public schools.

The state found the school system out of compliance with federal special education law because it did not have a certified teacher.

“I was worried about students getting accommodations in their (individualized learning programs),” Schmitz said. These programs are legally binding documents that require certain services and accommodations to help students with disabilities learn.

According to DPI, schools are not in compliance with state and federal special education laws when they have an unqualified teacher providing special education services. With increasing vacancies and recruitment difficulties, schools are finding it difficult to comply.

Department officials told WRAL News they are trying to provide individualized counseling to schools. But when pressed, officials did not provide examples of how to comply.

DPI spokeswoman Mary Lee Belz said the department provides technical assistance to schools with vacancies based on their unique circumstances to mitigate the impact.

She noted that the new state Superintendent of Public Instruction, Moe Green, has made addressing teacher shortages a top priority. She pointed to his “entry plan” to lead the department. This plan involves promoting the teaching profession through the “reverence” of public school teachers, the celebration of public education, and the creation of a safe and secure learning environment in schools.

“NC DPI takes job openings very seriously,” she said in an email to WRAL News.

State law allows schools to hire someone who doesn’t have a special education certificate but wants one. These candidates can obtain a three-year residency license, but must undergo intensive training and supervision during those three years for full special education certification. They will be considered qualified.

According to the North Carolina Association of School Superintendents, the number of licensed teachers in residence in all subject areas has skyrocketed to more than 5,000 such teachers this year, compared to less than 2,000 just three years ago.

The permanent deficit is growing

For decades, the state has experienced a constant shortage of special education teachers. About 1,200 special education teacher positions were vacant or filled by unqualified staff in the fall of 2023, according to the most recent state data available. This is more than three times more than the number of vacancies five years before. In 2018, 356 special education teacher positions were vacant or filled by unqualified staff, meaning they did not have a permanent license or a residence permit to teach special education.

Special education teaching has become a less attractive job over the years due to increased administrative responsibilities, stress and low pay, said Lynn Loeser, a retired DPI special education consultant. Many people quit within the first few years, she said, and fewer people go to college to become teachers.

In order to adequately serve children, schools may try to share special education teachers or be creative in other ways. But some solutions, such as having a certified mentor oversee the services new teachers provide, won’t necessarily help schools comply with the law, she said.

“I don’t think there’s a good answer to that,” Loeser said.

Providing additional special education for current teachers would only be a temporary measure that would add benefits to those teachers, she said.

“The solution is to make special education an attractive career,” she said. “It’s not a job, it’s a respected and respected profession, and teachers are paid, rewarded, respected and given the time to do their job well.”

Many schools fill vacancies with teachers who are not adequately licensed. But these unqualified teachers are not legally qualified to be the primary providers of specialized instruction that special education students need.

In Wake County, the number of special education teacher vacancies has decreased slightly in recent years, according to the district. But it’s unclear how many of those new hires have permanent licenses or special education residency licenses.

The Wake County Public Schools system reported 117 special education teacher positions vacant or filled by an unqualified person in the fall of 2023 — up from just 24 in 2018, according to state data.

In an effort to attract more special education teachers, the district began advertising for them beginning in the 2021-22 school year and hired a special education teacher recruiter. Some more positions have been filled since then, county and state data show, but not necessarily by people with special education credentials.

In 2023, the district launched a recruiting web page for special education teachers, and this school year, a page and advertising campaign for special education teaching assistants.

“We are deeply committed to helping every student reach their full potential, including the approximately 22,000 students in our district with individualized education (programs),” district spokesman Matt Dees said in a statement. “Our goal is to ensure that every student with an IEP receives the resources and support they need to thrive. We remain committed to serving our students with disabilities and their families with care, dedication and excellence.”

“It’s just not fair to the child”

To make that happen, Dees said, the district uses central office staff certified in special education to oversee services provided in the schools, such as developing lesson plans.

In its decision on Schmitz’s complaint in December, the state Department of Public Instruction cited support from the district’s central office as the reason students in Schmitz’s class did not need “compensatory services” to make up for the time they did not have a certified special education teacher. This frustrated Schmitz, who worried about the quality of service she was able to provide.

Emma Miller’s son received compensatory services after she filed a complaint about River Bend Middle School not having a certified special education teacher for her son’s class during the 2022-23 school year.

For about a month and a half, Miller’s son, Devon, received specialized instruction from a teacher’s assistant at a Raleigh school. This is because there was no special education teacher in his class.

Miller didn’t realize this until Devon scheduled a regular appointment for his individualized training program. The person she thought was his teacher was not there, and school administrators said it was because she was only an assistant and could not provide services.

“I was like, ‘What?'” Miller said. “My son seems to be recorded on paper as someone else, but in reality it is not so. So I’m like, “Wow.” This is where I’m just saying you can’t do things like that. It’s just not fair to the child.”

Miller said she spoke with some attorneys, including Legal Aid, who told her his special education teacher needed to be certified.

“They told me it was against the law,” Miller said. So she filed a complaint with the state, and the state found the school district out of compliance.

Schmitz once filed a complaint on behalf of her son at his charter school when she saw that he was not receiving the services he needed from a qualified person. Schmitz was distraught when she began to worry that the same thing might happen to students at the school where she taught.

“There was no plan for these kids and it was really sad because I just went through this with my child for two years,” she said.

Special education teachers are an “important part” of the team trying to serve a child with a disability, Loeser said. They can affect the fulfillment of needs, having a significant impact on future training and future income.

She gave an example of a person struggling with a reading problem.

“If you’re illiterate, it’s an impact in your adult life (is) on your health, your mental well-being, your employment opportunities, your social life, everything, so it can have a significant impact,” she said.

Leaders in the Wake County Public Schools system began looking at reorganizing the special education department in part to reduce the number of noncompliance cases.

Schmitz said improving staff training and holding principals accountable for whether students are receiving services will help.