Education Guide 10.18.26 - Flipbook - Page 2
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| Sunday, October 18, 2026
Special Education Teacher
Shortage Addressed
Programs to meet the demand for
qualified teachers at all levels
By E. Rose Scarff, Contributing Writer
T
here is a shortage of qualified
special education teachers in
Maryland K-12 classrooms. Two
schools featured in this article
are approaching this problem by offering programs that will help conditionally
licensed teachers become fully trained
and fully licensed. Since these teachers
have only three years to accomplish this,
these programs are designed with that in
mind. The third school featured is offering
a new bachelor’s in special education to
help meet the demand.
McDaniel College’s post-baccalaureate certificate program was developed
at the request of Frederick County Public
Schools (FCPS) as part of the State of
Maryland’s Grow Your Own Educators
Grant Program. FCPS received the grant
and has partnered with McDaniel to develop a certificate for conditionally licensed
special education teachers. These teachers do not have a background in special
education and have only three years to
complete all the requirements.
Building on their expertise with their
graduate program, McDaniel developed
a 29-credit certificate program leading
to licensure to teach special education
in grades one to eight, or grades six to
adult. The grant covers the cost of course
work and licensure exams. Classes are
fully online to fit working teachers’ schedules and could include synchronous and
asynchronous learning. It takes about
two years to complete the certificate.
Students will be supervised in their
school setting, both by the school where
they are working and by McDaniel faculty.
“They get mentoring in the early parts
of the program,” says Tracey Lucas,
assistant dean of education. “In their final
internship, they will have full supervision,
just as they would if they were in a traditional program.”
Since these students are being mentored and supervised by staff at FCPS
and by faculty at McDaniel, these two
entities meet frequently to make sure
they are both on the same page and not
causing conflict for the student. They
also receive feedback from the students
to make sure everything is working as it
should.
Special education is a very complex
field. McDaniel’s goal is to design a program that will produce the best possible
teachers by giving them the skills they will
need to succeed as special educators in
the classroom.
Goucher College has streamlined their
Master of Arts in teaching degree so that
it may be completed in one year. This lets
conditionally certified teachers get the
training they need in special education
and obtain their licensure while continuing to teach in the classroom.
The program is very rigorous. Students
Photo: Adobe Stock
are required to come in the first summer
to take all of their practice exams. They
are introduced to the Education Testing
Service (ETS) workbooks and studyhelp guides in preparation for taking the
exams. After this preparation, they start
their in-classroom internship.
The classwork they will be taking
during their internship is designed in such
a way that students can use content in
the classroom where they are teaching as
part of an assignment for Goucher or use
an assignment for Goucher for teaching
in their classroom. The students get credit for work they would be doing anyway.
“We try to honor a quality employment
experience,” says Annalisa Czeczulin,
Ph.D., director, programs for education,
“while providing the theoretical back-
ground that supports that experience.”
While the program is fully online, there is
frequent interaction between students,
their professors and their peers. The
interactive nature of online classwork
allows them to share their experiences
in the classroom with each other and to
learn from each other.
Classes can be synchronous and
asynchronous and are held in the same
format each time for easier learning.
Webinars are also assigned periodically.
Most of the faculty still work in this field
and bring their experience to the classroom.
During their internship experience in
the classroom, student teachers will be
Teacher Shortage,
continued on page 17
