School Building Level Administrators and Special Education: Roles, Responsibilities, and Expectations
Abstract
Special education has transformed over the last three decades to ensure the provision of services and instructional practices are provided for students with disabilities. However, there a disconnect remains between special education and the required knowledge an administrator needs in order to be effective for special education. As a result of the lack of knowledge many administrators have about special education, litigation and due process requests have continued to increase at a steady rate. A majority of administrators have reported lacking a fundamental understanding of special education law, instructional practices, and service delivery. This lack of understanding has impacted special education students and instructional practices. Additionally, accountability measures indicated a significant achievement gap between students with disabilities and their peers. Given these concerns, a need for research continues to exist to ascertain the most effective ways to improve administrator’s knowledge about special education in order to improve student outcomes.This qualitative, comparative case study aimed to explore perceptions about the role of an administrator for special education programming in order to identify specific areas of special education programming knowledge administrators need to be effective for special education. Interviews were conducted with three key stakeholder groups: special education teachers, general education teachers, and administrators, in order to ascertain converging and diverging perspectives about the role of an administrator for special education programming. Findings in this study supported prior work around the lack of knowledge administrators had about special education law and practice. However, the findings expanded on those further exploring the skills required to implement the knowledge administrators need in order to be effective for special education programming. Specifically, this study found that educational philosophy was an influential aspect to overall effectiveness of administrators for special education. Additionally, championing for the betterment of all stakeholders, and growth mindset were identified as areas necessary for an administrator to be effective for special education programming. These findings support the need for additional training that education administrators should receive to not only understand special education law, but also understand how to be an effective administrator for special education programming. Results reflect a need for administrators to have underlying knowledge about special education in addition to the soft skills needed to effectively support and oversee special education programming in their school.