Recruitment and Retention

The IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University developed this five-part, online, interactive module to highlight how to best support—and therefore retain—special educators, with a particular focus on the key steps school administrators can take to create a productive and inviting work environment.

This five-part, online module, created by the IRIS Center, highlights that administrative support is critical for new special education teachers and demonstrates how teacher support can boost effectiveness in the classroom.

This report, published by the Asia Society, examines the strategies used to develop and support strong teaching and school leadership workforces in three very different contexts: Melbourne, Australia; Singapore; and Toronto, Canada. The report contains a cross-city analysis and three in-depth case studies examining each of the cities. Best practices identified across these cities include a shared emphasis on systemic approaches, strong recruitment initiatives, increasingly thoughtful preparation and mentoring, purposeful support for ongoing learning, and proactive leadership development.

This report—published by the Alliance for Excellent Education and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education—provides a set of case studies that examines best practices for cultivating teacher and leader effectiveness from around the globe, honing in on Finland; Ontario, Canada; and Singapore. The areas featured in this report have well-developed and effective systems in place for recruiting, preparing, developing, and retaining teachers and school leaders.

Published by the National Center to Improve Recruitment and Retention of Qualified Personnel for Children with Disabilities, this brief highlights best practices—from across the country—for utilizing technology and social media (including Facebook and Twitter) to recruit and retain special education teachers and specialists.

Published by the National Center to Improve Recruitment and Retention of Qualified Personnel for Children with Disabilities, this case study researches the approaches three states have taken to “grow their own” special education personnel. Grow Your Own programs enable local education agencies (LEAs) to recruit and train special education employees from their own communities, often targeting high school students with an expressed interest in education careers, paraprofessionals, and/or rural educators seeking a career change. Approaches from Arizona, South Carolina, and Utah are highlighted.

Published by the National Center to Improve Recruitment and Retention of Qualified Personnel for Children with Disabilities, this brief focuses on the collaboration between district personnel preparation partnership programs and institutions of higher education to boost the recruitment and retention of special education personnel. The report finds that key components of a successful program include collaboration among partners, tailoring programs to meet unique needs, offering flexible methods of course delivery, and reaching out to nontraditional teacher candidates.

This article—published by the National Center to Improve Recruitment and Retention of Qualified Personnel for Children with Disabilities—examines how four states implemented new technologies (at either the state or regional level) in order to revamp their approach to recruiting and retaining special education teachers and specialists. Though limited data are available, all of these technologies appear to have had a positive impact on states’ recruitment and retention efforts.

This article—published by the National Center to Improve Recruitment and Retention of Qualified Personnel for Children with Disabilities—provides a set of guidelines to help state-level leaders address the needs of special education teachers and specialists. The document outlines the essential elements necessary to build personnel capacity and highlights best practices in the field.

Based on a review of the existing literature, this report (published by the RAND Corporation) provides a set of recommendations designed to help districts and states create conditions that foster principal success. Key recommendations include matching the correct candidate to the correct school, ensuring that resources are available to new principals, instituting high-quality evaluation systems for principals, and providing school leaders with greater autonomy.