Cultivating and retaining special educators competent to serve students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBDs) has proven persistently difficult. Improving educational systems’ capacity to meet this challenge will require better understanding of the roles special educators in these settings should be prepared for and supported to fulfill. The purpose of this qualitative investigation was to explore how four special educators in self-contained classes for students with EBD defined and experienced their roles. We found that teachers defined their primary roles as promoting students’ behavioral and academic growth; however, they also described experiencing dissonance between their ideal roles and their actual daily work. This dissonance was evident in two respects. First, extra responsibilities and emergent responsibilities occupied substantial energy. Second, social and material contexts often facilitated their behavioral role but less often supported their academic role. Findings have implications for improving the quality of the teacher workforce in self-contained settings for students with EBD.

Teachers of students with emotional and behavioral disabilities face complex challenges supporting students' academic and behavioral needs. These teachers require support from administrators, but administrators are seldom prepared to provide support. Furthermore, research seldom operationalizes support in ways that provide actionable advice to administrators. Prior research indicates that teachers frequently feel overburdened with excessive responsibilities, and they often provide insufficient instructional opportunities for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. However, prior research has not determined whether a relationship exists between teachers' responsibilities and their instruction. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between teachers' instructional time and the extra responsibilities they have. Results suggest that teachers' noninstructional responsibilities are associated with less instructional time. Despite limitations to data collection methods, these findings have significant implications for administrative support.

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Evidence of the powerful impact teachers have on student achievement has led to an intensive focus on cultivating effective teachers, including special education teachers (SETs). Local special education administrators (LSEAs) share responsibility for cultivating effective SETs throughout their districts. However, the roles LSEAs play in this process have not been clearly defined through research. This qualitative investigation used grounded theory methods to examine how LSEAs in the Victoria School District, a high-performing, inclusive district, described their roles cultivating a district-wide community of effective SETs. The findings have implications for districts’ efforts to cultivate effective SETs systemically and for future research on effective district-level leadership for special education.