Schools push bilingual and special education certifications as staff vacancies reach 90
NORWALK — As dozens of vacancies have persisted across the district, the city’s public schools are promoting two programs for their own teachers to become certified in areas most affected by the surge of resignations.
On its website, Norwalk Public Schools is encouraging teachers to earn bilingual or special education certifications as these areas have been hit particularly hard by the vacancies that have grown to nearly 100 in recent months.
“For both of these certification opportunities, we are promoting them because of the need for bilingual educators in the district due to Norwalk’s demographics and the need for special education teachers in the district overall,” said Emily Morgan, media relations specialist for the city’s schools.
The district said it would pay the tuition for 20 to 25 educators to earn a cross-endorsement in bilingual education. The virtual program is through The Alternate Route to Certification for Teachers of English Learners. The district said it is already paying the tuition associated with 14 of its teachers who are earning bilingual cross-endorsement this way.
“Three of the candidates are teaching in our new dual language elementary programs, which we’ve added to Brookside Elementary School and Jefferson Marine Science Elementary School,” Morgan said.
The special education certification promotion states it is “a comprehensive program geared toward general education
“(W)e are promoting them because of the need for bilingual educators in the district due to Norwalk’s demographics and the need for special education teachers in the district overall.”
Emily Morgan, media relations specialist
teachers who would like a special education cross-endorsement.” The district said it has not paid for the tuition for any of its teachers enrolled in this program.
“This was a program advertised by the Connecticut State Department of Education,” Morgan said. “The district regularly receives promotion of these types of programs from CSDE to help educators across the state. NPS chose to advertise the program on our website due (to) a shortage in this area.”
According to the promotion flyer, the 14-month program is for certified teachers with three years of experience who have “a desire to work with students with disabilities.” As of Friday, Norwalk schools had 90 total open positions listed on the education recruiting platform Frontline. The vacancies have remained relatively steady over the past month with 89 listed as of Nov. 1. The current vacancies include 18 specialized learning positions and 16 paraprofessionals.