District Leverages Technology to Support Special Education Students

Recruiting and retaining Special Education (SPED) Teachers is a challenge for Clovis Municipal School District. Due to their location in rural New Mexico, finding qualified long term employees becomes more challenging every year. This is especially true for SPED teachers - even Albuquerque, the state's largest district, has over 65 SPED vacancies outstanding.

In 2016, Clovis was facing three SPED vacancies. These vacancies, if not solved, would require them to place the development of student IEPs along with state and federal reporting on their already stretched-thin staff.

Clovis's HR Team met with Proximity Learning to get information on their Enriched Live Instruction Model (ELIM). They immediately saw the potential of live-streamed teachers and set up a meeting between Proximity Learning and their district's Special Education Director. During the meeting, the Director explained how they needed teachers to revise student IEPs, arrange meetings with parents, and provide unique updates throughout the year to the New Mexico Public Education Department. After learning that Proximity Learning had a great deal of experience satisfying these requirements, Clovis added three Proximity Learning SPED teachers to the team.

The three SPED teachers remotely joined Clovis's district-wide professional development training over the summer, ensuring that they were ready to hit the ground running when students returned to school in August. Clovis has not faced problems staffing their Special Education Department since.