| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this research was to examine factors that can impact retention and separation at a large public high school in southeast Texas, where, for the past 10 years, special education teacher attrition (separation) has been on the rise, a problem reflective of a national trend. School and district administrators must devise a plan to retain these specially trained educators because of the need for them to continue to provide uninterrupted essential services to students with special needs. There are also implications for school, district, and state policymakers to understand and be informed on the nuances of special education teacher attrition. In order to investigate the problem, a qualitative case study was designed, guided by an overarching research question: Does social milieu impact retention and separation at High School X? The case study investigated the factors that special education teachers regard as having an effect on their career decisions. The conceptual framework for the study encompasses Billingsley’s schematic representation of special education retention and attrition and Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory, neither of which sufficiently addresses empowering the voices of employees (special education teachers in this instance), which is the gap addressed by this study. Data collection involved one-on-one interviews, observations, and a focus group with 12 participants. The data were analyzed using inductive coding, where data were collected and analyzed for patterns and then categorized into themes. The themes support that social milieu impacts retention and separation at High School X and also suggest that if the problem continues to be ignored, attrition will persist. An educator-made product resulted from this study and gave voice to educators by allowing them to establish a list of recommendations that they, as participants, felt could make an immediate contribution toward disrupting attrition. | en |
