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Special-education staff tell board understaffing, paperwork and training gaps are harming students
Summary
HCEA presenters and special-education staff testified that chronic staffing shortages, high caseloads, limited substitute coverage and extensive paperwork are producing missed services and safety risks for special-education students; district staff described ongoing CCEIS support and planned strategic-plan updates.
Katie Merza, co-chair of the Howard County Education Association’s Special Education Committee, and several special-education teachers and related-service providers described a multi-part staffing and resourcing crisis at the Dec. 16 board meeting.
Merza and colleagues organized testimony into themes—training and preparation, instructional materials shortages, staffing shortages and safety, programming gaps, increasing student needs, planning and paperwork burdens, impacts on instruction and a human-cost sustainability issue—and urged the board to act. A special educator said, "I have 22 students on my caseload. How am I supposed to successfully meet my students' needs…
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