Special education teachers, including from Hedrick Middle School, pictured above, pleaded with the Medford School Board for help last Thursday, saying an educator shortage is making an already demanding job unsustainable.

As the Medford School District struggles to fill open special education teacher openings, help is not on the immediate horizon from a key local source.

A drought in Southern Oregon University’s special education program pipeline is a contributing reason why the teaching positions are going unfilled, according to Medford schools Superintendent Bret Champion.

SOU spokesman Joe Mosley said in an email that SOU’s special education certification program was merely “upgraded” to an optional endorsement offered with a Master of Arts in Teaching degree.

Champion, however,

said in a Monday interview via Zoom that SOU’s

new program had no takers.

“They had zero people sign up for their program for special education this year,” Champion said. “That’s not an SOU problem necessarily. It’s just a people problem.”

Champion said the special educator shortage is not just a problem at the local level, but nationwide as well.

According to a National Center for Education Statistics survey released Oct. 17 by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, 63% of the 1,318 public schools surveyed reported feeling understaffed in special education.

Special education teachers made up 70% of unfilled teacher vacancies when the survey was conducted in August, and the category took the top ranking for most difficult to fill with 77% of the schools surveyed describing special education teaching positions as either “somewhat or “very difficult” to fill, according to a summary of the findings issued Oct. 17 by the Institute of Education Sciences.

Michele Cleveland, the school district’s director of special education, said that the district also works with teaching programs at Western Oregon University and Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona, but not having the local university limits the strong foundation district officials like to give local student-teachers.

“That really allows us to begin that mentorship right away, and without people in those programs locally it’s really hard to partner with a university to be able to make that happen,” Cleveland said. “That definitely decreases those opportunities.”

Meanwhile, Champion described the shortage of special educators as one part of one of the most significant problems challenging his district.

“It is one of those things that keeps us up at night,” Champion said.

Multiple Medford special education teachers and one assistant pleaded with the school board for help last Thursday. They said in public comments that the educator shortage is making an already demanding job unsustainable.

Andrea Tary, a Medford special educator in her fourth year at Hedrick Middle School, told the school board last Thursday that she has more than 40 students with special needs on her caseload.

“Caseloads of this size make it impossible for the most challenged learners to learn because there are not enough resources to go around,” Tary said.

She said that there was also a shortage of special education classified staff for all of the past school year and into the current year.

Tary said that the lack of staffing leads to an “unspoken expectation that the work will get done some way, somehow,” and the extra work leads to burnout “and teachers leaving out of district.” She asked for teacher pay that compares favorably to neighboring school districts, better pay for classified staff and contracts that make it manageable to juggle classroom planning with students’ individualized education program plans.

Heather Woodward, a special education teacher in her 17th year at South Medford High School and a department head, said that the high school added a fifth special education teacher this year that was intended to reduce caseload numbers.

“However, caseload numbers have not gone down. In fact, they’ve increased, and now caseloads at the resource level are 40-plus,” Woodward said.

Woodward said that South Medford’s Multi-Age Positive Supports, or MAPS program, which offers classrooms with greater structure and routine for students with specific educational needs, is “bursting at the seams.”

“We have been begging for additional help and support and assistance,” Woodward said. “It’s not only impossible for us to give our students the attention that they need, but it is also a safety issue.”

Aaron Boyd, an educational assistant for South Medford MAPS classes, told the school board that he is spread thin and asked for more educational assistants to attend to students with developmental and physical disabilities.

“We’re not getting breaks at all,” Boyd said. “It’s frustrating. I love my job. I’m passionate for kids and high school students my whole life.”

Champion validated the special education teachers’ concerns at the meeting, saying the problem is “far from fixed.”

“That is an area where we know we need to continue to recruit and do all that we can,” Champion said. “It is one of the most challenging jobs that we have.”