PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon will divide $8.9 million among the state’s special education teachers, paraeducators and other staff members as one-time bonuses meant to help address the field’s alarming recruitment and retention problems.

The money follows a 2023 law that created a potential pay differential for special education workers, allowing school districts to increase their wages or give them one-time stipends. State Sen. Michael Dembrow, who sponsored the 2023 law and pushed for the current funding, said the bonuses now are meant to ensure all special educators receive recognition, regardless of school districts’ individual salary decisions.

“We wanted to make sure that there would be something for everyone,” Dembrow said.

Anyone who spends at least 75% of their work time supporting students who have individualized education programs will qualify for the bonus. School districts and other qualifying organizations — like public charter schools — are responsible for counting how many of their staff members qualify and reporting it to the Oregon Department of Education by Jan. 13.

Oregon Department of Education Communications Director Marc Siegel said state public schools employed 4,190 special education teachers last school year. The Oregon School Employee Association, the union representing classified employees like paraeducators, identified a minimum of 2,400 members who would also qualify. Were the stipend split only among those people, they would receive $1,350 each, but others — like speech language pathologists — will likely be added to the pool.

“I do think it’s a sort of a respectful nod from the state towards the work that special education teachers are doing across Oregon,” said Trevor Spangle, a special education teacher at Crescent Valley High School in Corvallis.

But at the same time, he — like several other people working in special education — said he felt like the bonuses wouldn’t truly dent the state’s problems with hiring and retaining special education staff.

Oregon is facing a notable shortage of special education staff. The Teacher Standards and Practices Commission’s job dashboard, which is not an exhaustive list of vacancies, lists more than 100 open special education positions in the state. Portland Public Schools’ careers page shows 32 vacancies, more than three times the number of open jobs in any other subject area.

Kyrsti Sackman, a paraeducator in Beaverton School District and the local chapter president of the Oregon School Employee Association, said her district started the school year with 120 or more paraeducator and special education vacancies. And as a “roving” paraeducator who fills in for other special education staff in schools throughout the district, Sackman sees how thinly her colleagues are stretched.

“People are constantly asking, requesting for me to come to their classes. They’re so short staffed,” Sackman said. “But then there’s always somebody else that’s more short staffed.”

She loves her job, watching kids light up when she walks in the room and advocating for her students and fellow educators through her union work. But she also understands why the district sometimes struggles to fill jobs.

Though Sackman is in her ninth year as a Beaverton paraeducator, she still brings home about $1,900 a month. She works several jobs just to scrape by. This month, after more than a year of couch-surfing and scrounging, she’s moving into an apartment outside Beaverton — she can’t afford rent inside the district anymore.

“I really do love the students,” she said. “But it’s getting pretty close to having to pick between my passion in the world and being a supportive human to neurodiverse students, and actually being able to live a comfortable life.”

The bonus seems like a nice gesture, Sackman said. But it also doesn’t feel fully sufficient.

Jennifer Groth, an inclusion educational assistant at Bend Senior High School and another Oregon School Employee Association chapter president, agreed. She, too, cares deeply about her job, but she’s also been scratched and bled at work before. Like Sackman, she works a second job to boost her income.

Any recognition is a step in the right direction, Groth said, especially for classified staff members like herself. But the stipend is “not long term,” and that’s a problem.

Sackman said she thinks a pay differential for all special education staff in Oregon would be the long-term solution. Other special education workers said that higher staffing levels — not just filling vacancies, but actively hiring more people — would make the job more sustainable.

Special education teacher Alyssa Potasznik said Portland’s Franklin High School, where she works, can’t fully support students with different levels of need with its current staffing. She said it needs more teachers and more funding, which would be her top priority over a bonus.

Moira Finnegan, a speech language pathologist at Franklin, concurred.

“It’s nice that the teachers and staff who work in special education are being recognized for the hard work that they do,” Finnegan said. “But a one-time stipend doesn’t move us in the direction of the bigger picture of properly funding special education services in K through 12 education in Oregon.”

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