Know What You Need: A Special Educator's Guide to Locating and Asking for Classroom Curricular Resources

High attrition rates among special education teachers is regularly credited to lack of administrative support, large caseloads, paperwork, lack of training, and overall job stress, but one key piece is often overlooked: lack of curricular resources. Special education teachers frequently find themselves in a classroom with no textbooks, no intervention curriculum, and no materials to guide and support instruction. This can often lead to out-of-pocket personal expenditures or scrounging for any materials, no matter how outdated and inappropriate they may be. In this article, we first offer suggestions on how to locate evidence-based practices, as well as an outline for how special education teachers can self-advocate by engaging in a discussion with administrators about the curricular needs of their classrooms.