LDA’s board of directors and staff recently celebrated with our fourth group of Licensure Program completers on December 13th at the Minnesota Humanities Center in St. Paul. Each of the teachers met all of LDA’s requirements and will be recommended to Minnesota’s Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PESLB) for a special education license.
Martha Moriarty, executive director shared at the event:
As I reflect on each of our completers, I can’t help but think about the students you will reach throughout their careers in special education. LDA launched this program because we wanted to play an active role in preparing future special educators. Throughout our history, LDA has helped families through tutoring, assessments, parent trainings and other direct support to families. Over time, LDA has hired hundreds of special educators and provided professional development to help strengthen their instructional, classroom, and teaching skills. Creating this program felt like a natural way to enhance the quality of special educator preparation—and, we hoped, to strengthen our own future workforce.
But today, I see this program doing far more than preparing a skilled workforce. We’ve deepened our mentoring to support educator retention, partnered with INDIGO Education to build a highly trained special education workforce in charter schools statewide, and engaged in statewide efforts to expand pathways into teaching. We’re also helping shape stronger special education and teacher preparation policies through our leadership in the Minnesota Coalition of Alternative Teacher Preparation, the Dyslexia Coalition, MN Council for Children with Behavior Disorders, and through various PELSB workgroups, and are participating on the state leadership team for the CEEDAR Center (Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform).
My hope is that LDA’s work across these partnerships will strengthen special education statewide—ensuring that students have teachers who understand disabilities and can help them reach their goals, that families have the resources and information they need to support their children, and that systems and policies are in place to support both students and the educators who serve them.
LDA continues to work with students directly through tutoring, assessments, and our community-based Learning Connections Program, but board and staff both see the licensure program’s potential to expand our reach to hundreds of students through highly qualified, trained teachers. Learn more about the program.