Greenwich schools now has a staff position focused on mental health initiatives
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
Schools are scrambling to find special education teachers. 3 ways to address shortage.
72% of public schools with special education teacher vacancies say they’re having difficulty filling positions. Special education teachers need coaching, mentoring and help with workloads, experts say. The heavy workload is often a key reason teachers leave special education, one expert says. Alternatives to expensive college training programs, such as apprenticeship programs, are also needed, she says.”Special education is a rewarding job, but it’s a tough job,” a former teacher says. “The kids we’re working with have emotional disturbances; and since it’s one of the more taxing jobs, teachers need to be supported mentally,” he says. resources can make a huge difference in retaining educators, said Aron Boxer, who now runs his own special education tutoring company in Greenwich, Connecticut, in addition to mental health resources and mentoring, he said. “It’s not good to have continuous stressors,” a special education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said, “and these teachers are so valuable and precious resources”
For the 2024-25 school year, 72% of public schools with special education teacher vacancies reported they’d “experienced difficulty” filling the positions, according to the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics.
USA TODAY talked with special education experts about the factors that led to the shortage of special education teachers and what schools can do to address the problem.
1. Mental health check-ins
Students in special education programs have disabilities that affect how they interact and learn, and their teachers must be able to manage their emotional and academic needs, said Deborah Schadler, an interim associate dean and director of the Autism Institute at Gwynedd Mercy University, in Philadelphia.
Difficulties that arise when teachers confront the “unpredictability of human behavior” in a classroom sometimes deter them from pursuing a teaching career or drive them away from the job, Schadler said.
Having mental health resources available and administrators who check in on a regular basis can make a huge difference in retaining educators and helping them cope with those challenges, said Aron Boxer, a former teacher.
Boxer, who taught special education and lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, left his job at a public school nearly nine years ago. He said he enjoyed working with disabled students who had “tough cases,” but the lack of support and the low pay drove him away.
After leaving the classroom, Boxer spent two years overseeing special education services at a private school. Now, he runs his own special education tutoring company in Greenwich, where he employs people with advanced degrees in the field.
“Special education is a rewarding job, but it’s a tough job,” he said. “The kids we’re working with have emotional disturbances; and since it’s one of the more taxing jobs, teachers need to be supported mentally.”
Providing special education teachers with consistent coaching on social-emotional learning, access to group therapy or meditation sessions and relaxation strategies could help, Boxer said. School administrators could also offer opportunities for teachers to connect “outside of the teacher lounge, away from the scrutiny of administrators” and have a neutral party facilitate the sessions, he said.
Schadler, from the Autism Institute, agrees that school administrators should regularly check in with special education teachers about their mental health. It’s one way to avoid pushing teachers out of the field.
“I think that in any of those kinds of situations, they should go to the source and ask, ‘What do teachers need?” she said. “There needs to be more discussion before it reaches the point where a teacher says, ‘I’m done.'”
Students with disabilities More likely to be snared by subjective school discipline rules
2. Coaching, mentoring, help with workload
Students in special education classrooms have Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs, which are written plans that outline, based on a student’s disability, the types of education and services they need to support learning.
Staying on top of these legal mandates, means special ed teachers have to fill out a lot of paperwork and spend time planning a student’s day. The upshot is that their everyday workloads far surpass what’s required of general education teachers, Schadler said.
“Those things are burdensome with some teachers and can make them feel lost and not driven,” she said.
The heavy workload is often a key reason teachers leave special education, said Kimber Wilkinson, a special education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After new teachers land a role at a school, they often tell Wilkinson they’re concerned about their morale and the workload.
She recounted the experiences of two special education teachers in Beloit, Wisconsin who “were excited about going back to teaching in the school district they attended” but both ended up leaving the profession shortly after they’d started. One had to take on extra student cases after another teacher left and the other felt similarly burdened by the extra work, she said.
“It’s not good to have continuous stressors,” she said. “I think these teachers are so valuable and precious resources.”
School administrators can alleviate these stressors and retain new teachers by supporting them from the outset, helping them manage their workloads, offering coaching and mentoring and encouraging them to speak up about their needs, Wilkinson said.
3. Alternatives to expensive, yearslong college training programs
Another challenge is attracting people to the profession, Wilkinson and Schadler both said.
First-year undergraduate college enrollment dropped across the nation this fall and that’s had an impact.
There never were enough special education teachers, Schadler said, and now fewer people are pursuing education, especially special education.
She thinks colleges should cultivate relationships with prospective students to attract them. Her school is planning to launch an apprenticeship program to give easier and more cost-effective training to high schoolers interested in teaching special education and paraprofessionals working in classrooms.
To attract high school and middle schoolers, Schadler said, the program will allow young people to take career-specific community college classes for the first two years of school before they transfer to a university.
This would alleviate some of the costs and allow students to work in special education classrooms and have it count for college credit, she said. She especially wants young students to be exposed to special education classrooms to combat stigmas about teaching disabled students.
Apprenticeship programs can elevate working people already present in special education classrooms, like aides who don’t have a college degree. Paraprofessionals in classrooms may not have the time to go to school with the burdens of work or childcare. Under an apprenticeship program, they would apply some time spent in classrooms toward college credit en route to a degree.
These types of “creative solutions” also include residency programs that provide special education training, Wilkinson said.
The job can be rewarding, Schadler said.
“The positives of my best day in a regular education classroom would not equal my best day in a special education classroom because the needs are unique,” Schadler said. “If you’re able to meet those needs … There’s a feeling of accomplishment.”
Contact Kayla Jimenez at kjimenez@usatoday.com. Follow her on X at @kaylajjimenez.
Greenwich Schools Chief Announces Newly Created Position: Coordinator of Student Wellness & Support; Jessica McEvily Appointed
Jessica McEvily has been named coordinator of student wellness and support, effective immediately. The role ensures the effective delivery of school-based mental health services through oversight of school counselors, social workers, and school psychologists. The funds for this position come from the elimination of a previous position in order to be cost neutral, but highly effective in restructuring GPS to be the best the district can be, Dr. Toni Jones said. Mrs. Mcevily holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and Spanish from Fairfield University.
In this newly created position, the coordinator of student wellness and support provides strategic leadership, supervision, and coordination of the district’s mental health initiatives.
This role ensures the effective delivery of school-based mental health services through oversight of school counselors, social workers, and school psychologists. McEvily will support the comprehensive, multi-tiered system of supports to promote the mental, emotional, and social well-being of all students.
“This unique position for our district will be focused on creating a systemic approach by creating a more cohesive partnership between psychologists, social workers, school counselors, and outside providers to build and strengthen mental health supports across K-12,” Dr. Jones said.”
“The funds for this position come from the elimination of a previous position in order to be cost neutral, but highly effective in restructuring GPS to be the best the district can be,” she added.
“Jessica McEvily makes a wonderful addition to our SESS administration team,” Chief Officer of Special Education and Student Supports Dr. Stacey Heiligenthaler said. “This is a much-needed critical position to support all students and mental health providers.”
McEvily, who had been the assistant principal at North Street School since 2021, joined GPS in 2007, serving as a school psychologist through 2019, and then as a behavior support team psychologist. Mrs. McEvily holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and Spanish from Fairfield University, a Master of Science in therapeutic interventions and a professional diploma from Fordham University, and a Connecticut 092 Administration Certificate from Sacred Heart University.
“Our students deserve a comprehensive, compassionate approach to mental health,” McEvily said “This role will reflect a meaningful opportunity to serve the students and families of Greenwich in a deeply impactful way working alongside our exceptional educators, mental health professionals, and school leaders to ensure every student feels safe, supported, and seen.”
UK university redundancies: latest updates
Thousands of jobs are being axed across the sector. This page explores the reasons behind the redundancies, how they will affect staff and students, and the long-term impact on higher education and research. The root cause of redundancies across British higher education is an unsustainable funding model. Many universities have reported sharp drops in overseas enrolments since the introduction of a ban on taught postgraduate students bringing family members with them to the UK. The impact of cuts will probably become increasingly noticeable to students, with a number of universities planning to close programmes alongside job cuts. Sector leaders have warned that it is inevitable that class sizes and class ratios will increase, and there have also predictions that assessments are likely to become more complex and formulaic, because universities will lack the resources to do so. The University and College Union branches have reacted to news of job cuts by balloting for industrial action, arguing that vice-chancellors are ‘exploiting’ financial challenges to make deep cuts, blaming leaders for wasting money on executive pay.
Latest UK university job cuts
In addition, several universities have opened severance schemes or announced savings programmes without specifying how many jobs are likely to be lost. These include the University of Liverpool (read more).
Read more:
Why are UK universities cutting jobs?
The root cause of redundancies across British higher education is an unsustainable funding model. Although tuition fees in England will increase to £9,535 this autumn, this comes after an eight-year freeze at £9,250. The real-terms value of this fee income in 2012 prices, when fees were tripled to £9,000, now stands at about £6,000 per student.
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With limited direct public funding from the Westminster government, universities have been forced to rely on international student recruitment to cross-subsidise both teaching and research activities. However, many universities have reported sharp drops in overseas enrolments since the introduction in January 2024 of a ban on taught postgraduate students bringing family members with them to the UK.
At the same time, domestic undergraduate recruitment has become increasingly competitive. Faced with dwindling international enrolments, highly-selective institutions, including a number of Russell Group members, have hoovered up a growing share of UK school-leavers, leaving less-selective universities short.
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Although the devolved nations have their own funding systems, the fundamental problems of dwindling per-student funding and disappointing international student enrolments apply across the UK. In Scotland, students do not pay tuition fees, with the Holyrood government instead providing direct funding to universities. However, Scottish institutions receive only about £7,610 per student on average, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated in 2023, with the value of teaching grants having declined by more than a fifth in real terms over the preceding decade.
Alongside all of this, universities are contending with increasing costs, with inflation pushing up prices across areas such as staffing, research, estates and utilities. The increase to employer national insurance contributions announced in the chancellor’s Autumn Statement is likely to cost English universities £430 million, outweighing the £371 million anticipated income from the tuition fee rise, according to the Office for Students. And, across the UK, many modern universities – those that gained university status in 1992 or later – are contending with significantly increased employer contributions to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, which now stand at 28.68 per cent of staff salaries. This compares with 14.5 per cent under the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), which primarily serves more historic institutions.
Analysis by Times Higher Education published in January found that around one in three UK universities which had published their accounts for 2023-24 at that point had reported operating deficits, up from around a fifth the year before. The OfS has warned that three-quarters of English providers could be in deficit by 2025-26 without “mitigating action”.
Read more:
Where are university staff going on strike?
Many University and College Union branches have reacted to news of job cuts by balloting for industrial action, arguing that vice-chancellors are “exploiting” financial challenges to make deep cuts, blaming leaders for wasting money on executive pay and vanity projects.
What do university redundancies mean for staff and students?
Beyond the impact on staff losing their jobs, redundancies are likely to have a significant impact on the academics and higher education professionals that remain, in the form of increased workloads and stress.
Research activities are also expected to be affected, with a number of cuts targeting research units, and other institutions seeking to reduce the proportion of their research that they fund from their own resources.
The impact of cuts will probably become increasingly noticeable to students, with a number of universities planning to close programmes alongside job cuts, with redundancies also likely to limit the availability of module options for students already enrolled. Sector leaders have warned that it is inevitable that class sizes and student-staff ratios will increase, and there have also been predictions that assessments are likely to become increasingly standardised and formulaic, because universities will lack the resources to mark more complex tasks.
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How does this compare globally?
Historically, when one of the major anglophone recruiters of international students has put the brakes on enrolments, others have opened their doors. What is unique about the current situation is that all of the major English-speaking study destinations – Australia, Canada, the UK and the US – are displaying increased hostility towards student migration at the same time.
The impact has been greatest in Australia, which has long been heavily reliant on overseas students, where the government has imposed institutional visa caps and throttled visa processing. Well over 1,000 redundancies have been announced so far, with some commentators predicting “Covid-scale” job losses.
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After the Canadian government imposed provincial student visa caps, international enrolments are projected to fall by 45 per cent, with leading institutions starting to announce spending cuts and job losses.
While international students have expressed mixed feelings about enrolling in US colleges under a Donald Trump presidency, it is the White House’s funding freezes and attacks on diversity initiatives which are having the greatest impact on universities there, with institutions already announcing hiring freezes and scaling back planned investments.
Universities elsewhere are making cutbacks, too, including institutions in the Netherlands.
What are people saying about this?
Writing for THE, four academics gave their views from the front line of the redundancy crisis. One scholar, who asked to remain anonymous, described losing “whole departments, entire degree programmes and scores of highly experienced professional service colleagues from essential roles”, with their own department among those targeted.
“I found myself sobbing every time I came into the office. It felt unimaginable that an intellectual project into which so many people had invested so much of their lives would simply fade away,” they wrote.
Les Back, subject group lead in sociology at the University of Glasgow, wrote that redundancies in “safe institutions” such as Edinburgh and Cardiff “reverberates everywhere and conveys that jobs are unsafe anywhere”.
“Fear and insecurity are spreading across the sector in ways that I have not seen before, making people afraid to be openly critical. And while the survivors most traumatised by redundancy processes are eager to do almost anything to keep their jobs, many others become less amenable or collegiate, determined to just keep their heads down. They disengage from communal academic endeavour, such as departmental meetings and peer reviewing,” Back wrote.
“But the truth is that while scholarship is rewarded individually, it cannot be practised alone; it is a shared collective endeavour or it is nothing. Redundancies in one place damage us all. Unprecedented damage is being experienced everywhere in UK higher education at the moment, and we must find ways to repair it.”
Read more:
Resources for affected staff and students
University staff affected by redundancies and restructuring may wish to seek support from one of the five sector trade unions. The largest is the University and College Union, but Unison, Unite, the GMB and the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) also have higher education members. Unions may be able to support staff members hoping to seek legal advice.
Separate to any restructuring process, many universities will offer mental health and other support to employees.
Campus, THE’s professional advice site for higher education faculty and staff, offers a range of resources relating to careers, resilience and well-being. Highlights include:
Students who feel that university redundancies and restructuring have adversely affected their learning may wish to seek redress via the sector regulator – for example, in England, the Office for Students – or the sector ombudsman – for example, in England and Wales, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator.
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