Imagine: You are fresh out of college with a teaching degree and certifications from a university that prepared you for life in the classroom before a pandemic. You are so excited about your first year of teaching; you take the first job opportunity. You answered all the questions correctly presented by an administrator but asked little to no questions about how they will support you and their knowledge of special education. You assume that since you see their school-wide positive behavior reinforcement and vision, the administration is supportive and will guide you through your new environment. A few weeks pass, you are given the keys to your new classroom and an assistant or two to decorate the plain white walls and begin lesson planning along with attending a variety of training, but you still don’t even know where the resource room is located. You begin the school year applying instructional and classroom management strategies that you were taught in college. A few months passed, and you had a groove going. Then, suddenly, a nationwide school closing happens due to a pandemic. Since this is the first pandemic for all, no one had answers to how to engage students, especially students with disabilities, create a Zoom or Google call, teach through screen share, and more. After students receive the technology provided by the state, you begin to get frustrated with the incompletion of assignments, lack of attendance, and lack of support from the administration. Parents are struggling on the other side of the screen with your students who are non-verbal, lack the motor skills to hold a mouse or touch a screen, require movement breaks, maladaptive behaviors, and more. Teaching from home has allowed you to pick up more hours with your second job to make ends meet because of inflation. Let’s be honest having a little bit of freedom during the day is nice, but it begins to get repetitive and boring. You feel isolated as an educator and begin to lose that drive you had. Fast forward to summer, and you are anxiously waiting for the announcement if you will be back in the building or continue virtually. You receive an email from your administration; you will continue virtually with new and difficult guidelines to meet with no insight and how to get there. You start the school year while still working your “side hustles” because your teacher pay is not enough to afford your tiny one-bedroom and car payments. You begin the school year still collecting insufficient data from half of your students who choose to show up. A month has passed, and you still haven’t heard from some families by zoom, email, call, or text. Finally, teachers can return to the building, but students are still learning at home. Feeling a little more confident you can use the calendar and other supplemental materials in the classroom, but it’s still not engaging students. Your administration has yet to provide strategies that you could be using from the classroom over zoom with your students with disabilities. Luckily, you taught yourself how to make interactive PowerPoints. You receive an email from your administration that students can return in two weeks. You get that feeling of excitement again that you haven’t had in a while. Your students return with more maladaptive behaviors and show regression academically, socially, emotionally, and independently. Now, you are in the position to make up for lost skills and have your students acquire new skills because they are eligible for state testing. You attend meetings hosted by your administrator reminding you of deadlines but still offering no tools. You begin doing more work for your students outside of school, and your career has slowly absorbed your workplace and home. You become physically and mentally drained from your classroom’s physical behaviors and lack of structure. You begin to give up on this career with no one to lean on. You see on social media how teachers are making more doing less intensive jobs like a virtual assistants. You put in your two weeks by winter, and you’re free along with 50% of special education educators who leave within the first few years (Boe et al., 2008). Two weeks passed, you began questioning your decision to leave the field. You feel guilty for leaving your students, but your mental health is more important. Eventually, someone less qualified with a general education degree, temporary license, and unaware of the prior scenario takes your special education position. The less qualified teacher is married with no children, and their household is a dual income. The less qualified teacher struggles more than you do because students lose over 54 days of instruction when their teacher leaves mid-year (Jones, 2020). With only a few differentiated instructional strategies, this new teacher relies on your aids to show her the way and has to make up for the regression lost during the pandemic and your 54 days (Jones, 2020). At first, the new classroom is overwhelming for the teacher, but she is passionate and driven. The first week is chaotic but still no sign of administration checking in. She requested a few days off for a fake medical emergency but only to sit at home to teach herself how to manage and teach a variety of students with disabilities because the administration had no tools to offer. She comes back with a new schedule, new ideas, and a caring heart. The students do not make gains as they would have with you, but there are some gains, and the new teacher is trying her hardest. How could losing a qualified special education teacher and student regression be avoided?

Jones, A. E. (2020). Retaining Special Education Teachers: The Relationship Between School Leadership and Special Education Teacher Retention in a Low-Income School (Order No. 28090280). Available from Education Database. (2449480535). http://lynn-lang.student.lynn.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/retaining-special-education-teachers-relationship/docview/2449480535/se-2?accountid=36334

Boe, E. E., Cook, L. H., & Sunderland, R. J. (2008). Teacher turnover: Examining exit attrition, teaching area transfer, and school migration. Exceptional Children, 75, 7–31.