RETENTION BRIEFING
Recruitment and Retention of Qualified Special Education Staff
This issue of the Mountain Plains Regional Resource Center Today focuses on the topic of recruitment and retention of qualified special education staff.
For more information and a link to the publication.

RECRUITMENT BRIEFING
Prevalence of Strategies for Preparing Rural Teachers
Findings from a multi-site case study.
This Institute of Education Sciences (IES) report describes how nine teacher preparation programs in the Central Region prepare their graduates for teaching positions in rural settings. In the introduction, Barley and Brigham discuss some to the unique challenges faced by rural school districts in ensuring a highly qualified faculty.
For more information and a link to the publication.

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POSITION SURVEY
The Oregon Special Education Recruitment and Retention project is undertaking an informal, bi-monthly survey of open special education positions being advertised on Oregon school district and ESD websites. The number of open positions being advertised after the start of school appears to accurately gauge the extent of the personnel shortage in special education. See JOBS Clearinghouse for more.

• April, 2008 - 317 open positions advertised. 16% were for paraeducators, 34% for Special Educators and 20% for Speech-language pathologists.
• July, 2008 - 325 open positions advertised. 30% were for paraeducators, 30% for Special Educators and 14% for Speech-language pathologists.