Nearly 10% of Texas students receive specialized education services within their school district.
A special education teacher's primary responsibility is to assist students with learning, emotional, and physical disabilities. Students with severe disabilities will need to be taught basic skills by special education teachers.
Some special education teachers may have their own classrooms. Others might work alongside general education teachers to ensure special education students succeed in general classroom settings.
While this description is general, special education teachers perform many other activities daily. We'll go into more detail below.
What does it mean to be a special education teacher?
It is important to understand what a special educator does in the classroom.
What is special education? Students with disabilities are taught by special education teachers. Special education teachers are trained to teach children with mental, learning, or physical disabilities in grades preschool-12th.
There are many special education teachers who serve different populations, but they all work with students who have learning difficulties.
Every child is different, but the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act divides disabilities into 13 categories.
- Specific Learning Disability (SLD) – e.g. Dyslexia.
- Other impairments of health – e.g. ADHD
- Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
- Emotional disturbance (e.g., depression, obsessive compulsive disorder), Bipolar
- Language impairment or speech
- Visual impairment/blindness
- Hearing impairment
- Hearing impairment
- Deaf-blindness
- An issue with the musculoskeletal system
- Intellectual disability
- Traumatic brain injury
- Multiple disabilities
According to the Texas Education Agency, Texas' special education students have increased by nearly 38% in the past three years. About 11% percent of students in Texas are from special education.
Responsibilities for a special education teacher
Students are provided with the appropriate support by special education teachers. This is done to ensure that they continue to be part of the general education classroom. Texas is home to 65% percent of students in special education programs. This means that they spend around 80% their time in general education classes.
Special education teachers may be available depending on the needs of students.
- Provide one-on-one tutoring
- Teach Specialized classroom with low student-to teacher ratio
- To assist a student in general education , you will need to work alongside a teacher of general education
Special education teachers may be able to pull students from non-core classes on a few days per semaine in order to offer extra math, writing, or reading tutoring.
Special education teachers also have the responsibility of helping students develop and implement their individualized education programs (IEP). An IEP can be described as a legal document that determines what kind of education a student should get. A committee made up of social workers, educators, and other experts, along with the parents, creates the IEP. It is then updated year-to-year based on student progress.
Here are some additional roles that special education teachers can play in implementing an IEP:
- Evaluate children's academic and social skills
- Create an environment that encourages and supports learning
- Provide direct or indirect instruction
- A variety of educational skills can be used to reach students in many ways
- Encourage and teach socially acceptable behavior
- Create lesson plans that align with the IEP for a student.
- Encourage students curiosity, investigation and exploration of their own ways to interact with the world
- Talk with parents about how to support your child
- Keep precise records
- Conduct regular testing
Special education programs can be found in Texas' public schools. However, Texas also has a number of private special education schools.
How to become a special education teacher
You now know what it takes to be a teacher in special education. It is important to act immediately if you are interested in this rewarding career.
Texas recently changed the requirements for teaching credentials. It could be more difficult to earn your teaching licence. You need to be a teacher in order to qualify.
- Register in an educator preparatory program (EPP).
- Complete required training (300hrs including 30 hours to observe by a teacher assistant or in an classroom setting).
- Pass all certification tests
You must pass a content exam in order to be certified. This list includes Texas teacher certification exams. The "Special Education Supplemental (Grades EC-12/12)" exam is required if you want to be a special education teacher.
PPR, Texas Examinations of Educator Standards Pedagogy & Personal Responsibilities is another major exam. According to Texas Education Agency, the test "is designed for assessing whether a test-taker has the knowledge and skill that an entry-level teacher in Texas public school's field must possess."
The Texas State Board for Educator Certification has recently established a new requirement for educators to meet in order to become certified. This alternative to the PPR is being adopted.
Teaching candidates will need to take the edTPA instead of the PPR. (Currently, the 2023-24 school years will be the last year in which the edTPA test will be required.
The edTPA does not require that you take a single exam, as opposed to the PPR. The edTPA demands that student teachers prepare a portfolio of materials as part of their learning experience, primarily during student teaching internships.
Teaching candidates have the choice of taking either the PPR exam or the edTPA assessment during the 2022-23 academic year. Teaching interns will need to include the edTPA assessment in their certification requirements for the 2023-24 schoolyear. The TEA will change the cut score for teaching interns starting in the 2024-25 year.
Although the final details are not known, there is a chance that you may only be able to score a mark higher than this cut score. It is possible that you won't earn your certification if your cut score does not reach the required level, despite all your training.
Texas Certification Programs such as ECAP teach interns how to create a portfolio using real data. However the intern is not allowed to be assisted with the creation of the portfolio. The candidate will have two attempts at the exercise. This will allow each candidate to be familiar with the process and help to construct the final product. Interns may not use their ECAP and any other certificates program, video, or data to submit their portfolio. Compiling a portfolio takes one semester. It is a complicated process.
While these strict requirements are meant to strengthen Texas teaching, some interns may experience significant difficulties in obtaining their teaching license. If you are considering becoming a special educator, you should apply to the EPP as soon as possible to avoid missing the PPR.
