Special Education Director

Although she was satirized when she said it, Hilary Clinton was right: It really does take a village to raise a child. Especially when that child has special needs due to a mental, emotional or physical disability.

A Special Education Director serves as village chief. A senior-level School Administrator, the Special Education Director oversees the special education department either for a single school — an elementary school, middle school or high school — or for an entire school district. Instead of teaching, therefore, your primary responsibilities as Special Education Director are management and coordination.

On the management side, you’re responsible for hiring, training, supervising and evaluating Special Education Teachers, as well as Special Education Assistants. In other words, you’re the boss, which means handling human resources functions, disciplinary procedures and other management duties, such as creating and monitoring department budgets, as well as representing the department to the community and the school board.

On the coordination side, you’re responsible for managing the education and care of special-needs students. Although Special Education Teachers typically create their own curriculums, for instance, they must collaborate with you in order to do so. After all, you’re your school’s most senior Special Education Teacher, which means you set standards and hold colleagues accountable for meeting them.

Occasionally, you instruct or work with individual students. Mostly, though, your job is deploying and organizing resources on their behalf. Because special-needs students often are cared for by teams, for instance, it’s your job to coordinate team members — Teachers, for example, Therapists and parents — in pursuit of shared goals.