Special Educator Preparation: Promising Strategies to Promote Recruitment and Retention

On September 12, 2023 the PROGRESS Center hosted a virtual event, Special Educator Preparation: Promising Strategies to Promote Recruitment and Retention focused on building capacity with those who support pre-service and in-service educators to develop and implement high-quality educational programming for students with disabilities. The goal of the event was to share current practices, barriers, and potential solutions to resolving challenges around special education teacher preparation and promoting progress for students with disabilities learned through research and practice.

The 2 hour event included;

• A welcome from the PROGRESS Center and Dr. David Emenheiser from the Office of Special Education Programs at the U.S. Department of Education
• A presentation, Special Education Preparation: Recent Research, from Dr. Roddy Theobald, from the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research and American Institutes for Research (AIR), Dr. Elizabeth Bettini from Boston University, Dr. Allison Gilmour from AIR, and Dr. Melinda Leko from University of Florida
• A presentation, Retaining Special Education Personnel at All Levels: Georgia’s Approach featuring Lynn Holdheide from the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders at AIR, Amy Colpo from the CEEDAR Center and AIR, Wina Low the Georgia Department of Education State Director, and Dr. Katherine Johnson from the Georgia Department of Education
• A spotlight on key PROGRESS Center resources that can help to support special educator preparation