Special Ed still has openings in many schools.
The job is demanding with a capital "D". To qualify, a teacher
must earn a special authorization for the job. A teaching credential layers so
much paperwork on a man just to qualify for the preliminary paperwork. It takes
another year and a half of study to get a special ed authorization.
There are two types of special ed credentials: mild-moderate and
moderate-severe, depending on the severity of the students' learning
differences in the classroom. Also, different specializations may place one
teacher with autistic students, while other teachers will work with the
emotional disturbed, or the students with multiple handicaps.
For a brief time, I had concerned going into special. I knew that I would be
guaranteed a job, but after all the drama and paperwork which I saw eating up
teachers' time, space, and peace of mind, I had decided to forgo the whole
thing.
But so many years later, with questions still rummaging around in my mind
about what I wanted to do with the dim and diminishing prospects. Maybe a second
look at Special Ed was worth the while after all.
At LACOE that one May afternoon, I was gathered in the huge main conference
room to listen to a LACOE administrator explain the ins and outs of getting
hired as a special ed teacher for the next year. The room was packed with
teachers, including many of the substitute teachers whom I had seen working
throughout the county. I remember one young Asian man, who covered classes
frequently at Los Padrinos every week, or at least every day that I was there.
He w
The moderator leading the convocation, a middle-aged woman slim and svelte
with an Irish lilt, it seemed, outlined all the issues, all the paperwork that
the prospective teachers in the room would have to go through in order to get
hired. The lady leading the convocation, some upper-echelon district official,
explained at length a very lengthy process. First, a prospective special
teacher needed to enroll in the program offered by the county. The entire one
and a half year program would cost about $3,500.
By enrolling in the program, I would receive a provisional acceptance
letter, which would permit me to apply for jobs throughout the county. Once an
employing district located my resume and offered me a job, if I got that far,
then I would inform the County offices, and they would start me in the class.
The first catch for this whole program, though, rested on the pernicious fact
that I had to be hired in order to stay enrolled in the class. Either I had to
go all the way with the program and work at the same time, or forgo the whole
thing just like that.
Of course, I was suspending reality for the one hour that I was listening to
this drawn-out spiel. I really believed, at least for that little bit of time,
that I could actually run from a special ed program, a completely new classroom
experience altogether, then run to the County office for three more hours of
classes, then get home in time to prepare for the next day, eat, and sleep.
Yes, I really believe that I could do all that, even though I had tried that
at least two different times in my life, with disastrous results. Still, there
I was trying to repeat the same mistake with different results, much like my
history of teaching in a different school, as if the school environment,
population, or personnel needed to change in order for this "school
thing" to work for me.
The new word that I learned that evening: "Triangulation", meaning
the time and coordination that would tie in my home, my prospective job site,
and the County Office. "Make sure that you do not take a job that is too
far our of your way. The commute from home to work to school to home should not
be so long and burdensome, that you will be burned out in a short time."
Another lesson that I should have learned by now: I had taken a French assignment
in Brea, which on a good day was forty-five minutes away, and with traffic
turned into an hour and a half. It was an ugly commute, combined with an ugly
school culture of spoiled rich kids and arrogant administrators who refused to
stand up to parents and thus preferred to walk all over me. After one month, I
quit that job and never looked back.
The Irish-speaking lady then spent the next thirty plus minutes going over
proper etiquette online, submitting proper resumes with the correct heading indicating
the right school districts, including the Human Resources staff, or whoever
else I was supposed to get in contact with. I could not believe that she
thought the vast majority of the professionals whom she was addressing would
employ email addresses with inappropriate names, or that we would submit
paperwork with errors. Still, the woman needed to justify standing in front of
us and talking for an hour and a half.
With all the negative experiences behind me, plus the overwhelming amount of
time and money expected to get into the program, I thought about leaving right
away. But since I had come from so far to attend, I decided to stay. The
meeting ended, briefly I spoke with the convocation speaker. One lady came up
to her, talking about how she had just flown in from San Francisco, looking for
a job. This short, young woman was willing to go this far to find a job. That
was dedication, a kind of calling which I did not sense within me. I was
looking for a job, this woman wanted to further her career in spite of the
economic and political downturns hurting the state and depriving public
education of much-needed funding.