Retaining Special Education Teachers

Project ReSpecT is a three-year, federally funded project conducted by the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of South Carolina.  The purpose of the project is to increase special education teacher retention through the development and implementation of a mentoring model to support early career special education teachers.  The project will include the following three stages:

Phase 1:  Synthesizing existing literature and practices, surveying South Carolina  

                  special education teachers who remain in the field and those who leave, and 

                  developing a mentoring model

Phase 2:  Validating the mentoring model in three school districts in South Carolina

Phase 3:  Refining the model, developing training modules, and disseminating the