Long time poster, signed out just in case colleagues are here.

A sped teacher quit and wasn’t replaced because admin said they couldn’t find anyone. They had two applicants, and according to them, neither were good candidates. They don’t advertise anywhere other than our website and FB page - no teacher job boards, not state school board association job board, etc. What do they expect??

Anyway, I’m 16 over my caseload limit, and the other teacher is 21. I know they sent the justification form to the state board for the exemption.

I know it probably varies from state-to-state, but the form looks like they have to prove this won’t impact students’ progress. I’m thinking they did this by saying we have full time paras in our rooms. We don’t. I have one part time, as does the other teacher. The other paras we have are relied upon to fill in where needed and are NEVER in our rooms.

Or, is “we can’t find anyone” a legit excuse they could use?

I’m so over it. I’m drowning, I have 18 annual IEPs and four initials this month alone. My kids are not being served the way they should be, but I’m trying.

[Haley23]

Do you have a union? I wonder if this is something they could help with. If it's anything like my district, the district union people wouldn't know much, but they could push it to someone higher up within the union who would have more familiarity with sped.

We don't have caseload limits in my state, so I'm no help there . At one point I had almost 50 kids and was told it was fine because I had a part time para. People just have no idea.

Two years ago, my P non-renewed our school psych and we couldn't find anyone. There were only a couple of applicants. P didn't want one of them and the other turned the job down when she realized the salary vs. COL (she was from out of state).

My district went through some sort of head hunting agency to find a replacement after we still didn't have someone by October. It's more expensive than just hiring someone directly, but they guarantee to fill the position. Perhaps you "helpfully suggest" that, in writing?