Weakley County Schools seek special education teachers

WEAKLEY COUNTY, Tenn. — Local school leaders are in need of special education educators.

Weakley County Schools Special Education Director, Deborah Perkins says the county is in dire need of special education teachers and a speech language pathologist.

The county serves 600 special education students.

Perkins says the Board of Education was fortunate enough to find 10 teachers for this new school year, but is still in need of one of each.

She says the problem is there aren’t enough people available in the state that are trained in this field.

She feels it’s due to the special education field being seen as a challenging one.

“Special education teachers in particular seek out the deficit areas that children have and work to help them overcome those. If you have that need, that desire to help children become the best that they can be, then special education is really for you,” Perkins said.

Perkins says the Board of Education is working on an Educational Assistance Program to help with the costs of receiving your teaching certificate in special education.