School of Education Graduate Studies

School of Education Receives $100K Grant to Help Ease Teacher Shortage

Janelle Hill M’23 17 April 2025

The School of Education is getting help from the state to attract and retain new special education teachers.

The school recently received a $100,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network for the Accelerated Special Educator Certification Program.

The grant will allow DeSales to recruit 15 graduate students to earn full instructional one special education certification Pre-K through 12 in just 18 months. Students will start classes this summer, and a third of their tuition costs, or four classes, will be covered by the grant.

“I think every prospective graduate student that I talk to is looking for fast and affordable,” says Katrin Blamey, Ph.D., associate dean of the School of Education. “The largest barrier to adult students going back to school to become certified teachers is the financial piece. Offering a cohort of students the financial means to make this more affordable is essential.”

The School of Education has partnered with four local schools and districts: Colonial Intermediate Unit 20, Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21, Southern Lehigh School District, and Salisbury Township School District. It will accept applications from those partners first. If the 15-student requirement isn’t met, others in the state will be able to apply.

“A lot of times the students that we’re attracting to this program are already working in the field of special education,” says Blamey. “They may be working under emergency permits or they might be instructional aides, but, for whatever reason, they don’t have full certification. They’ve probably been thinking about it for a while, and this is the incentive that gets them across the starting line.” 

This is the third grant that DeSales has received from PaTTAN. All three aim to improve special education programming and attract more teachers to that certification. According to Blamey, Pennsylvania continues to face a massive teacher shortage, particularly in high-need areas such as special education.