Date of Conferral

10-9-2025

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Tiffany Cameron

Abstract

School leaders in a local school district continue to struggle keeping their special education (SPED) positions appropriately staffed. The problem was that the inability to fill these large numbers of vacancies could adversely affect the quality of services SPED students receive and impact school personnel's ability to meet legal IEP compliance requirements. Guided by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s two-way factor theories, the purpose of this qualitative study was to gain the perspectives of school and district leaders regarding difficulties in post-COVID-19 recruiting and retention of SPED teachers. A basic qualitative design was used to capture the insights of 13 school leaders from a local school district through semistructured interviews; a purposeful sampling process was used to select participants which encompassed both school administrators and district level leaders who support SPED teacher hiring. Emergent themes were identified through open coding and inductive analysis, and the findings were developed. The findings revealed that school leaders need to increase efforts to provide continued support and training for SPED, specifically related to work-related stressors including managing student behavior and compliance reporting. A white paper was created to provide the district’s upper leadership with recommendations to boost SPED teacher retention through enhanced support and training of SPED teachers. This study may lead to positive social change by providing a structure that assists school leaders in improving the training and support of SPED teachers, therefore improving compliance with IDEA requirements, teachers’ level of job satisfaction, and SPED teacher retention in schools.

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