LPS, UNL launch pilot program to help paras become special education teachers

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Lincoln Public Schools and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are teaming up to help with teacher shortages, specifically in special education.

The Para Pathway to Teaching pilot program launched on Thursday, aiming to build a pipeline of special education teachers.

“We started this conversation with UNL about a year ago,” said Vann Price, LPS associate superintendent of human resources. “Special education is an area of need in terms of … having more candidates who are committed to Lincoln Public Schools, to our students.”

Ninety-eight percent of the nation’s school districts struggle to retain special education teachers, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

And Lincoln is also experiencing that need.

“It was really knowing that we have a huge need for special education teachers across this country,” said Sue Kemp, professor in UNL’s Department of Special Education. “We just don’t have enough of them. We know it from the training perspective, and clearly LPS knows it. We can’t fill all of these positions.”

Fourteen current LPS paraeducators will take part in a program to fill that need by obtaining their special education teaching endorsement.

Iman Alkanfas is one of them.

An early childhood para at Adams Elementary School, Alkanfas said she sees students with special needs now and wants to become a teacher.

“That is the point,” Alkanfas said. “I want to be a special education teacher. I want to see the kids’ improvement. I want to see the family happier than before they even start in the school. This is what I really want to do.”

Alkanfas has tried to find a program like this for the past two years, but most through other colleges had too much of a workload or were too expensive.

LPS and UNL will cover tuition and fees, with participants picking up the cost of textbooks.

The paras will complete the program over seven semesters while continuing their work at LPS.

Then they’ll sign a three-year contract to teach within the district.

“We know that special education teachers are scarcer than they have been in previous years,” Price said. “We looked at that and thought, ‘We really need to be proactive in terms of how we’re going to solve that so that we don’t find ourselves in a situation where we don’t have teachers to be working with our students.'”

The work will start sooner than later.

Participants will be picking up laptops as early as Friday.

And classes will start on Aug. 21 as UNL’s fall semester begins.