By Muhammad Waheed
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
School districts throughout the state are or will soon experience a shortage of special education teachers who help blind or visually impaired students, according to educators who were interviewed over the past two weeks.
The shortage of vision teachers is occurring because of retirements as well as a lack of new recruits coming out of college, the educators said.
The educators said the problem could have a big impact on visually impaired students because they need the special education teachers to help them get a good education in the public schools.
“I know there are a number of counties that are actively looking for new teachers and haven’t been able to fill positions and we also have a number of teachers who have been in this field for a long time and are getting close to retirement age,” said Josh Iryzk, the principal of the general academic program at The Maryland School for the Blind.
MSB is a private school for blind and visually impaired students. The school receives most of its funding from the state.
Amy Morrell, a teacher of the visually impaired at MSB’s outreach department, said counties in Maryland allocate money to allow blind or visually impaired students to attend MSB. The schools also provide transportation to and from the school, Morrell said.
According to the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland, federal law requires that blind and visually impaired students get a free and appropriate public education. The law says that all students must have an individualized education plan (IEP), the group said, and that parents have a right to be involved in how the IEP is developed.
In addition, the federation said several state laws provide protections so that blind and visually impaired students have access to Braille reading, instructional technology, and textbooks that are accessible to those with disabilities.
Morrell said county school districts must provide services to the visually impaired or they will be in violation of state and federal statutes.
“It’s against the law,” Morrell said. “They’re not getting the services that they deserve. They deserve to have equal services just like someone without a visual impairment so they’re not being educated the way they should be.”
Morrell said that not having a vision teacher can prevent visually impaired students from accessing educational content and being denied an education.
Garrett, Harford, Howard, Kent and Montgomery counties as well as the District of Columbia are experiencing shortages of teachers of the visually impaired, Morrell said. She said MSB’s outreach department provides contracted services to the District and several counties, including Baltimore, Harford, Howard, Kent and Montgomery.
Morrell said that a big problem is finding replacements for vision teachers who are retiring.
Baltimore County is one of the many school districts in Maryland that is set to face a possible shortage of vision teachers.
Pam Satterlee-Williams, a Baltimore County public school teacher of the visually impaired, said the school district is taking steps to fill the gaps in its special education staff.
“They try to fill the vacancies and there will be several vacancies in the next couple years because we are an aging group of vision people,” Satterlee-Williams said.
Satterlee-Williams said that five of the seven current Baltimore County vision teachers are over the age of 63 and that some of these teachers may not be with the school district after the next three years.
The challenge, she said, is finding qualified vision teachers.
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Salus University and the University of Pittsburgh are some of the few universities close to Maryland that offer programs that certify vision teachers, Satterlee-Williams said. She said there are no universities in Maryland that offer such programs.
“Definitely as a profession we need to advertise,” Satterlee-Williams said. “We need to sell it. We need to make people aware of what a great profession it is, how much fun it is. It’s a really good job and it’s a really good profession. I don’t think we do that enough. People just don’t know about it.”
Laila Richman, assistant dean in the College of Education at Towson University, said one of the reasons that schools may not have programs to certify vision teachers is because there are not enough students who are interested in enrolling in them.
“It takes a significant amount of time and resources to develop a new program,” Richman said. “It depends on need. If we have a lot of students interested in a degree program and we can demonstrate a market demand to the state, then it’s something we’ll pursue. But if we’re not going to have enough students in the program to run it then it becomes a question, how do we justify expending the time and resources?”