Faced with a shortage of special education teachers, the Blue Valley School District will help paraprofessionals become certified teachers themselves to help fill in the gaps.
At last Thursday’s community breakfast event, the Blue Valley Educational Foundation announced a new “Para-to-Teacher” program aimed to take away financial barriers for special education paraprofessionals to become full-time teachers.
The program pays tuition for licensing
- Through a donation from the Blue Valley Educational Foundation, the program waives $13,140 per teacher in licensing tuition.
- The foundation approved a total of roughly $131,000 in tuition toward the program.
- Ultimately, the money is expected to cover the tuition costs of about 10 special education paraprofessionals in the district who want to become full-time certified special education teachers.
Blue Valley has faced special education shortages for years
- This year, officials said Blue Valley has 85 unfilled special education paraprofessional positions.
- Another 13 special education teacher positions across the district are currently being filled by substitute teachers.
- “Ensuring the district has sufficient special education teachers is and continues to be a true challenge,” said Michael Rea of the Rea Family Foundation, which aims to support people with developmental disabilities, at last Thursday’s community breakfast event. “At times, there isn’t a large enough pool of qualified special education teachers to fill positions.”
Special education teacher shortages are a countywide problem
- School districts across Johnson County and Kansas have faced a continual shortage of both teachers and support staff in special education.
- The Kansas City Star recently reported that the Olathe School District had 264 unfilled paraprofessional positions in August.
- The Shawnee Mission School District and USD 232 in De Soto reported 50 open positions and 185 open support staff positions, respectively.
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