FCPS short 130 special educators for 2022-23 school year

Jul. 14—Frederick County Public Schools needs to hire more than 130 special educators in the next five weeks to be fully staffed by the time classes resume — something district administrators acknowledge is unlikely.

The shortage is most severe among special education instructional assistants (SEIAs), whom FCPS has been struggling to recruit and retain for months.

At the June 22 meeting of the Frederick County Board of Education, the district staff reported 30 SEIA vacancies. On Wednesday, they reported 97 vacancies.

There are about 640 SEIA positions across FCPS, said FCPS Special Education Director Linda Chambers, meaning the district is missing about 15% of its workers for the role.

The shortfall of special education teachers has jumped, too: The district reported three vacancies on June 22 and reported 33 on Wednesday.

The change is due in part to retirements and resignations that came after the end of last school year, Chambers said. The board also voted to add 24 additional SEIA positions to the fiscal year 2023 budget it recently passed, aiming to satisfy requests from parents and teachers of students with disabilities.

"There is a call in the community," Chambers said. "They say, 'We need more instructional assistants. We need more support in buildings.'"

The school board voted earlier this year to increase pay and, for the first time, provide benefits for SEIAs in an attempt to attract more applicants. SEIAs now start out making $18 per hour.

"However, there are still individuals much more willing to get equitable or higher compensation in what they may deem as an easier job," Chambers told the board. Costco Wholesale and Aldi both have open warehouse jobs that pay about the same as an SEIA position would, and also offer benefits, Chambers said.

Early-career special education teachers make around $50,000 per year in FCPS, depending on their degree and how long they've worked in the field.

The district has recently been leaning on guidance from the Maryland State Department of Education that allows administrators to hire people for special education teaching jobs even if they don't have the required certifications.

FCPS can offer "conditional" employment, Chambers said, as long as employees have a bachelor's degree and obtain their certifications within two years.

That's always been allowed, Chambers said, but the district hasn't used it much.

"If I had my way, I would say, 'Absolutely not. We're not going to take any conditional people,'" Chambers said. "I want trained people in our program. But the reality is they don't exist."

Chambers said her department is working on a mentorship program for early-career special education teachers that would provide coaching and support. The district is also holding job fairs and recruiting at local colleges, she said.

"This will very much be at the forefront of what we do for the remainder of the summer," Mike Markoe, who was interim superintendent before returning to his job as the district's deputy superintendent, told the board on Wednesday.

The staffing shortages have also affected FCPS' Extended School Year (ESY) services, which are summer learning sessions meant to keep special education students from regressing when school is out. ESY services are federally mandated and offered to roughly 1,100 FCPS students each year.

For some children, ESY takes the form of 30-minute speech therapy sessions once per week, Chambers said. Other kids, like Rock Creek School students with more significant disabilities, get 16 weekly hours of practice with the "critical life skills" identified on their Individual Education Plans (IEPs).

The district couldn't offer the services it had planned to for about 100 ESY-eligible students this year, Chambers said. Instead, it's offering to connect families with private providers and reimbursing them for the cost.

The affected students were mostly kids who would have focused on speech therapy, Chambers said.

Districts around the country are dealing with similar staffing problems, which have existed for years and were exacerbated by the pandemic.

Chambers said she was committed to closing FCPS' gap, even if it didn't happen by the first day of school on Aug. 17.

"We are going to fill every single position," Chambers told the board, "come hell or high water."