Grace Garza said she thinks about leaving her job as a special education teacher “all the time.”
Currently, Garza works at Mead Elementary School, where she has a caseload of 10 students. She’s been in special education for more than 14 years now, and for nine of those, Garza’s been the Alternative Learning Environment instructor at Mead.
Garza is one of 78% of teachers across the state who have seriously considered leaving the teaching profession in 2024, according to a Charles Butt Foundation Poll.
In recent years, schools across the state and country have struggled with retaining and recruiting teachers, and San Antonio area school districts are no exception to teacher shortages, especially in the special education field.
Data from Texas Education Agency shows that one in three teachers in Texas are uncertified, a result of teacher shortages and vacancies that spiked after the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the San Antonio region, roughly 24% of new teacher hires for the 2024-25 school year had no certification or permit.
Data also shows that the teacher attrition rate — the rate at which teachers left their jobs whether it was for a different teaching job or a different industry — for the 2023-24 school year was about 12%.
Teachers and education advocates have cited low teacher pay, lack of teacher mentorship programs and disregard for the profession as reasons for teachers leaving classrooms.
“It used to be, when you said you were an educator you were responded with ‘Wow. That’s great…you’re awesome,” Brandon Oliver, a spokesperson for East Central Independent School District said. “Response in 2025 is much different.”
Special education student populations are growing
At East Central Independent School District, one of the few districts in the area to boast growing enrollment, teacher vacancies remain high.
Despite a booming enrollment and the need for more teachers and school buildings, 297 teachers resigned during the 2023-24 school year, and as of March 7, the district has already received 149 resignation letters.
Meanwhile, the number of students with special needs at East Central ISD increases each year. During the 2019-20 school year, the district had 1,187 special needs students, and during the 2023-24 cycle, the district reported 1,624 special needs students. That’s an increase of 37%.
Oliver said the district has more students who identify as special needs each year because the district’s enrollment is growing and is expected to double by 2033.
But another reason is that educators now have more tools in identifying students with special needs. “We have more professional educators. They’re more aware and they’re more conscious, and know what to look for,” Oliver said.
As of April 8, East Central ISD currently has six special education teaching vacancies, Oliver said. The district currently serves more than 10,000 students.
The obstacles facing special education teachers are especially challenging, Garza said.
Not only are special education certifications more difficult to complete than general education programs, special education teachers risk being injured by their students.
“It not only takes a toll on the work at school…but it also takes a toll on your mental health,” said Garza, who works for Northside ISD, adding that she gets injured on the job once a week on average, including bite marks and bruises.
While her administration provides constructive feedback on her lesson plans, Garza said they’re not always helpful when it comes to student behavior issues, often telling her and other special ed instructors that they’re at fault for not having sufficient classroom management skills.
“They’re reactive instead of proactive,” Garza said about her school’s administrators.
At Northside ISD the shortage of special education teachers has remained consistent, said spokesperson for the district Barry Perez.
“Vacant special education positions, including instructional assistants, have remained difficult to fill,” Perez told the Report.
District officials from both NISD and ECISD said it’s not unusual for teachers to submit resignation letters as the end of the school year nears, and they expect to see more resignations during the summer months.
During a March NISD school board meeting, Superintendent John Craft said the special education certified teacher to student ratio in elementary schools is 1:15, and 1:17 in middle schools.
As a cost saving measure, the district is considering increasing class sizes because of its $96 million budget deficit.
Garza, who works with two instructional assistants and one long-term substitute, stressed the need for IAs and said they should be paid more given their help with classroom management.
In March NISD had 147 teaching vacancies, 90 of which are for special education teachers, Perez said.
Roughly 14% of the student population at NISD, which has a total enrollment of about 101,000 students, are considered special education students, a figure which has remained steady in recent years according to TEA data.
Districts, advocacy groups work on solutions
“Nobody wants to do our job,” Garza said during an April interview. “The reputation of being a special education teacher has become a bit more hardcore.”
Last year, a report by Texas Public Radio detailed a widespread pattern of student-caused injuries to teachers at NISD, especially in special education classrooms. The report included details from a 77-page grievance outlining the experiences of nine teachers, each from a different campus in the district, who were injured by students, including instances of hair pulling, concussions, biting and black eyes.
The grievance was signed by several NISD teachers and filed in part by the Northside American Federation of Teachers, a teacher union. The document argued that the district’s special education teachers and instructional assistants didn’t have enough support from the administration to keep them safe and that staffing and training shortages lead to more injuries.
On one occasion last year, Alfred Jimenez Jr., a 73-year-old instructional assistant at NISD died after hitting his head, a result of being pushed by an upset student with a learning disability.
To address shortages, several districts have adopted “Grow Your Own” programs, which offer pathways for districts to cultivate teachers within their own communities and garner interest in the profession among high school students.
The TEA offers competitive grants for school districts to implement such programs.
In recent years, Alamo Heights ISD and San Antonio ISD are the only districts in the area awarded state grants for Grow Your Own programs.
Other strategies for combating shortages include establishing teacher residency programs and offering teachers stipends based on experience and area of expertise.
NISD offers a teacher residency program, which gives prospective teachers in college the opportunity to get more hours in the classroom earlier on in their certification process. Candidates who go through the residency program usually get hired right after completing the program.
East Central ISD has similar programs, including a teacher residency program in which the district partners with neighboring colleges to give student teachers experience in the classroom.
When it comes to getting more special education teachers, Garza said investing in these kinds of programs is necessary.
“You can’t grow a teacher overnight,” said Garza, who receives a $2,000 stipend for being a special education teacher on top of her $60,500 salary.
Like many teachers, Garza has a second job to make ends meet. One or two days a week, Garza works as a traveling special education teacher for students with disabilities that require them to stay home.
Garza was part of a teacher group that traveled to Austin in March to meet with state lawmakers and advocate for, among other education items, increased teacher pay, more public school funding and more investment in teacher mentorship programs.
To get a special education certification in Texas, teachers need to complete a college program, log hours in the field, submit an application with TEA and pass one to three certification exams, depending on the specific area of special education they want to work in.
Education experts often cite the cost and time of getting a certification as one of the obstacles all prospective teachers, not just special education teachers, face.
During an education symposium held at Texas A&M University-San Antonio on Wednesday, Gladys Hernandez, the director of talent at City Education Partners, said the idea that teaching isn’t an attractive profession anymore isn’t true — the problem is access to certification programs.
Last year in October, CEP launched Teach San Antonio under Teach.org, an organization that coaches and guides prospective teachers for free on which paths they can take to get certified and get in the classroom.
So far, Teach San Antonio has at least 3,000 registered users indicating they want to teach in the city, a number CEP had not expected to reach so soon after the site’s launch, Hernandez said.
At the state level, lawmakers are considering a handful of bills meant to improve teacher retention and address teaching shortages by funding certification programs and increasing teacher pay.
House Bill 2, which passed the House Public Education Committee on April 3, would give school districts money to put uncertified teachers on the path to certification. Under the bill, those who participate in an in-school certification program would receive $10,000 and those who go through college programs would get $3,000.
Senate Bill 26, which passed the Senate floor in February, is meant to establish yearly raises for teachers with at least three years of experience. The bill would also expand the Teacher Incentive Allotment Program, a program that awards money to qualified teachers — usually only core subject teachers — based on their effectiveness in the classroom.
It’s unclear whether these bills will pass both chambers and become state law. The legislative session ends June 2.
Despite all her grievances with the job, Garza said she doesn’t think she could do a different job because she cares about her students and stressed the need for an emotional connection to the job in order to be a successful special education teacher.
“It takes love,” Garza said. “If you don’t have love for these kids, then you don’t have anything.”
