How much do Special Education Teacher's make? (career, degree, demand)
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It depends on the district. You can look up your local districts as payscales are generally public.
Correct. It also depends a great deal about where in the country the school district is located. You'll notice that the pay in places like New York are MUCH higher than in midwestern states as an example. Don't be fooled by this. The cost of living in places like NY will eat up that pay differential real fast. Your net pay considering this COL difference will in many cases make you worse off if you're there.
Average pay by state is easily available. Each school district often post their pay scale on their websites.
Do they tend to make more than General Education teacher's? I know money isn't everything. But I'd want to be able to make decent money.
In my current district PASS teachers and LI SPED teachers get $1,000-3,000 yearly stipends. Other SPED teachers, such as interventionists, collaborative teachers, and resource teachers do not. PASS are the behavior disorder students and in today’s climate it is quite a high bar for misbehavior to get that label, as in proven dangerous, not just threatening. LI stands for Low Incidence Disabilities and are primarily kids whose disabilities are severe to the degree that they need specialized help or are incapable of being in regular classes without a dedicated aide. The stipends started a couple of years ago because those are very, very hard jobs to fill. Honestly, I don’t think it’s enough as the chances of being injured on the job are exponentially higher than most other positions in education. Not all districts have them, either.
Be forewarned however that stipends can go away from one year to the next without warning. Trust me they will if we get another teacher glut and desperate people will take the jobs to get a foot in the door. Vacancy levels, by the way, is the biggest advantage of being special ed over general ed - it makes getting a job easier and you are less likely to get pink slipped unless you are just ragingly incompetent or do something just plain stupid.
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My wife was a Special Ed Para-educator for 18 years. In our district the SPED teachers tended to burn out after 5-6 years and go back to the regular classroom teaching. With the parents hiring legal help (student advocates) to demand every minute of every service they are entitled to, and with the increasing number of kids suffering from seizures or exhibiting violent behavior, it takes a lot out of the teacher. Eventually they decide it's not worth the additional pay, about $11,000 more/year.
My wife was a Special Ed Para-educator for 18 years. In our district the SPED teachers tended to burn out after 5-6 years and go back to the regular classroom teaching. With the parents hiring legal help (student advocates) to demand every minute of every service they are entitled to, and with the increasing number of kids suffering from seizures or exhibiting violent behavior, it takes a lot out of the teacher. Eventually they decide it's not worth the additional pay, about $11,000 more/year.
In my previous district in California, once you were certified as Sped, you could not get out of it. You became Sped for the rest of your career. The rules there said that the District could use you in any capacity for which you were credentialed. Hence you were stuck, due to the shortage.
In my previous district in California, once you were certified as Sped, you could not get out of it. You became Sped for the rest of your career. The rules there said that the District could use you in any capacity for which you were credentialed. Hence you were stuck, due to the shortage.
Wow, that REALLY takes away the incentive to get certified for Sped. What teacher wants their career permanently dictated to them with no recourse available? Doing this in California, doesn't this make it even harder to get teachers to transition into Sped? To me, this is creating an uninteded consequence from the state's actions.
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