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Special Education Teachers, Secondary School

Teach academic, social, and life skills to secondary school students with learning, emotional, or physical disabilities. Includes teachers who specialize and work with students who are blind or have visual impairments; students who are deaf or have hearing impairments; and students with intellectual disabilities.

What you’d do

  • Establish and enforce rules for behavior and policies and procedures to maintain order among students.
  • Maintain accurate and complete student records, and prepare reports on children and activities, as required by laws, district policies, and administrative regulations.
  • Confer with parents, administrators, testing specialists, social workers, or other professionals to develop individual educational plans (IEPs) for students' educational, physical, and social development.
  • Employ special educational strategies and techniques during instruction to improve the development of sensory- and perceptual-motor skills, language, cognition, and memory.
  • Establish clear objectives for all lessons, units, and projects, and communicate those objectives to students.
  • Prepare materials and classrooms for class activities.
  • Teach socially acceptable behavior, employing techniques such as behavior modification and positive reinforcement.
  • Confer with parents or guardians, other teachers, counselors, and administrators to resolve students' behavioral and academic problems.

Skills that matter

  • Instructing
  • Learning Strategies
  • Reading Comprehension
  • Speaking
  • Active Listening
  • Coordination

How to get there

Considerable preparation: most need a four-year bachelor's degree

Also called

  • HS SPED Teacher (High School Special Education Teacher)
  • Learning Support Teacher
  • SPED Resource Teacher (Special Education Resource Teacher)
  • SPED Teacher (Special Education Teacher)
  • Education Specialist
  • Emotional Disability Special Education Teacher (ED SPED Teacher)

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