Special education priorities not in order, lead to frustrations
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Administrative hassles forcing special education teachers to move in different directions

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Mack received her degree in education and certification in mental retardation from Oklahoma State University in 1990.

Hired as a special education teacher immediately after graduation, she taught in the Perry public school system for nine years. Mack was responsible for the care, teaching and socialization of mentally handicapped individuals ranging from infants to young adults.

After almost a decade of frustration, Mack left the field in 1999.

She is not alone in her decision to walk away from teaching. The attrition rate of educators has led to one-third of all special education positions remaining unfilled each year, according to a report prepared by the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education.

Issues forcing educators out of the teaching profession must be addressed to reverse this trend; students’ needs are not being met, according to the report.

The teacher shortage is complicated further because more children are being identified as having special needs, according to the American Association for Employment in Education.

There are 6.4 million children and young adults with learning disabilities, ages 3 to 21, whose lives are affected by the teacher deficit, according to a 2002 report to Congress on the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

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Mack said she tried to encourage the administration to divide the students by age, as some of the older students acted violent and sometimes attacked the younger children.

"On at least three or four occasions, I was so aggravated by my administration’s refusal to address problems that I videotaped inappropriate and unsafe activities occurring in my classroom and handed the tapes to my principal," Mack said.

She passed them on to upper administration for review, but nothing was ever done about it.

Oklahoma State Department of Education communication director Wendy Pratt said Oklahoma law supports the administration’s refusal to segregate the students.

"Students' learning levels, not ages or disability types, determine classroom makeup," she said.

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But government and school policies limited one-on-one teaching time, she said. She spent a large part of her day doing paperwork.

According to the Study of Personnel Needs in Special Education report, special education teachers spend approximately 25 hours a week teaching.

This can be largely attributed to the amount of paperwork required by federal and state governments, as well as school districts, according to a report by the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities.

Increased lawsuits filed against school districts by parents of disabled students have heightened the need for teachers to keep detailed records, according to the report.

Government mandated reports weren’t the only forms of paperwork that consumed teaching time, said Mack.

"Then there were the notes I wrote throughout the day to cover my butt; documenting small incidents such as a child getting a scratch on his nose," she said. "If a child’s parent called me at home and wanted to know why her child had a scratch, I’d better have it written down so I could give precise details."

Another issue Mack said concerned her was special education students were housed in the first grade elementary school building. Her students, including the young adults, merged with the rest of the school’s population during physical education and music classes, as well as in the cafeteria.

It seemed unsafe to mix 21-year-old special needs students with the 7-year-old elementary population, but the issue was not corrected by the administration, Mack said.

The older students’ best interests were not being considered either, she said. The young adults needed to be around people closer to their ages in order to gain socialization skills, and that wasn’t possible since they were being retained in the elementary school.

With frustrations mounting, a new job opportunity within the field became available, and Mack decided she needed a change.

In 1995, she became the school’s learning disabilities teacher. The children in the program needed help in specific subject areas such as math, reading and writing. Mack had a maximum of 15 students in her classroom at one time, then the students returned to their regular classrooms.

The rest of her day was spent working with children 1 month to 6 years old who were considered at risk for future disability issues. She went to see the children in their homes and daycare facilities when parents couldn’t bring the children to the school.

"The last year of teaching, things really started going downhill," Mack said. "I loved the students, but lack of administrative support, politics, rules and regulations had burned me out."

She said she made the right decision to quit because she’d become so stressed, unhappy and discontent.

Kim Young, a former learning disabilities instructor at Perry High School, said she understands Mack’s frustrations.

When Young began teaching learning-disabled students, she said her special education adviser told her: "Don’t grade any of their papers, just throw them in the trash. You don’t need to spend your time messing with that kind of stuff. Just make sure all your paperwork is done and your due dates are met."

"To me, the priorities were really screwed up," she said.

Young said she soon became disillusioned with the imbalance of quality teaching versus meetings, paperwork and deadlines. She returned to her previous position as a second grade teacher after one year of teaching special education.

Young has taught second grade for the past four years and says she is relieved to be back in her old classroom.

"Even though I passed the special education certification test, I never added it to my teaching certificate," she said. "I was afraid if I had it on there, I would be forced back into teaching it."

Young said she believes new legislation may make the burden on special education teachers even heavier.

The No Child Left Behind Act, an educational reform package enacted in 2001, requires competency testing of all students, including those with disabilities, according to a document published by the Education Commission of the States.

"There’s always been quite a bit of documentation required in the area of special education, at least since the mid 70s," said Pamela Fry, College of Education dean.

Fry said it is unclear how the federal administration is going to address the increased paperwork issues associated with the No Child Left Behind Act.