Creating and Sustaining Collaborative Professional Development in Special Education: Lessons From the Interdisciplinary Training Project in Special Education and School Psychology (SP2)

Introduction

Shortages in personnel with appropriate qualifications threaten to limit the ability of children with disabilities to access services. Schools increasingly lack the requisite numbers of school psychologists needed to address student social-emotional needs, interpret student assessments, and support school-wide prevention strategies in behavior and academics (Castillo, et al 2014; NASP, 2021; Strein et al., 2014). The scarcity of school psychologists compounds the limited supply of special educators. Well-documented teacher shortages and attrition are more pronounced in rural areas such as those comprising much of the Midwestern US (Berry et al., 2012; NASP 2017). The shortage of special educators is worsened by the difficulty K-12 schools have in finding special educators who are qualified to address the high-intensity needs of students with disabilities (American Association for Employment in Education, 2016).

The number of students who currently receive special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) exceeds 6.4 million (United States Department of Education [USDOE], 2020). The proportion of students exhibiting problem behavior or otherwise requiring treatment for social-emotional issues at the national level has also increased dramatically (Kauffman & Badar, 2018). Of every 10,000 individuals between the ages of 3 and 21 served under IDEA between 2016 and 2017, 13 were removed to an alternative placement; 73 out of every 10,000 were expelled or suspended for more than 10 days (USDOE, 2020). The supply of school psychologists and special educators falls well short of the demand for services. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) recommends a ratio of 500 to 700 for every school psychologist (NASP, 2020). Only 37.2% of school psychologists reported ratios that met the NASP standard (NASP, 2020; Walcott, et al., 2018), with the actual ratio of students to psychologists in the US estimated to be 1,381 to 1. Boe and colleagues (2008, 2013) noted declines in the numbers of special education teachers and attrition (10%) at levels double those of general educators. The Learning Policy Institute identified special education as “the number one field with severe shortages” (Sutcher et al., 2016, p. 10).