School District D
School district D was a 103 year-old community positioned along the Pennsylvania/Ohio border.
The community was formed around the steel industry, and, since the demise of the steel plants,
had experienced economic decline. The elementary school has a student population of 593 with
80% black students and 82% of the students eligible for free or reduced-lunch. In 2005, 46% of
their third graders scored at or above the proficient level; state average was 68%. The student to
teacher ration was 12:1 and this building houses students in grades K-6.
Teacher D1. District D had the least experienced teachers in special education,
including Teacher D1 who was completing her fourth year of teaching students in Learning
Support in grades 1-5. She recently graduated from Clarion University with a Masters degree in
special education and a Bachelors degree in elementary education. Just as the other teachers with
less experience in the field, teacher D1 was open to providing whatever tasks she needed to
provide in her building, but she was equally unsure as to the purpose of her work. She said she
would define her role as “undefined” and that everyday she seemed to do something differently
than the day before.
Teacher D2. Another dually certified teacher, D2 had been teaching in this building for
5 years, graduating from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a Master’s degree in special
education. She had spent all 5 years teaching students in Emotional Support in grades 1-5, and
was very expressive of her feelings of burn out. She mentioned frequently that the students who
qualified for ES were coming to her with more and more significant needs than she had been
prepared to handle in her university work. She wanted to provide many suggestions for what
universities could do to better prepare future teachers for the reality of this work, work that she
labeled “exhaustive and exhausting.” Teacher D2 was newly married, and frequently mentioned
that her husband was becoming more and more frustrated with her coming home tired and
unhappy and “talking about my kids’ lives all the time.”
Teacher D3. Teacher D3 had eight years of teaching experience, all in this building as a
teacher of students in Learning Support in grades 3-4. She was a Slippery Rock University
graduate with a Master’s degree in special education. Teacher D3 was equally expressive of her
desire to move into a general education setting as soon as a position opened, citing many reasons
for wanting to leave special education. She described her job as a SET with one word: “crazy.
It’s a crazy job.” Teacher D3 felt the role of a special education was a “noble” position and she
wished she could do more to ensure the students in her building were receiving a good education,
but she felt restrained by the nature of the job description