Profile on Dr. Rande Webster
Dr. Rande Webster, a professor in the Department of Education, and the Director for the Special Education Program at Dominican, recently secured a grant of $800,000 from the U.S. Department of Education. This grant program, titled Project Sage, is designed to increase the number of special education teachers able to serve California’s rapidly growing diverse student population, as well as help combat the high teacher turnover rate in special education.
Grant funding will be disbursed over a four-year period for scholarships that will help up to forty-eight students graduate with a teaching certificate in the area of special education. This grant also will allow Dominican faculty to fully develop, implement, and disseminate a dual-credential special education teacher-training model that can be used by higher education teaching programs throughout the United States.
According to Dr. Webster,
“There is a shortage of highly qualified underrepresented personnel to serve ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse populations in programs for students with high-incidence disabilities. Our recruitment efforts will target para-professionals, mid-career professionals interested in changing careers to become teachers, and general education certificate-holders interested in becoming special educators.”
While the national shortage of special educators continues to rise, the shortage in California is acute. In the past five years, special education student enrollment increased by 7.39 percent, but the number of special education teachers increased by only 1.34 percent, according to figures from the California Department of Education.
Dr. Webster is also working on new graduate and undergraduate curriculums that can be offered to support specialized training in the area of clinical speech and language. It is hoped that graduates of this program will be able to help meet the growing speech and language needs of students within California schools.
Due to the teaching shortage in California, there are many students who are not getting the crucial special education help that they need in order to overcome significant learning challenges. To help meet this need, Dr. Webster, (along with two colleagues) has secured a contract from Jossey-Bass to publish a book that provides teachers with an adapted education curriculum that can be used to help meet the basic needs of students who have different learning needs. This book is designed for use by public school teachers in grades 3-8. Dr. Webster and her colleagues hope to have the new curriculum completed, published, and available for purchase by spring 2008.
The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs will continue to assist Dr. Webster in obtaining and maintaining grants that can support special education student scholarships, and other important grant projects that will allow Dominican to help meet the special education needs of students in California.
