On June 19, the Virginia Board of Education approved a recommendation by the Advisory Board for Teacher Education and Licensure to grant “conditional approval” to Sweet Briar College to license special education teachers through its Master of Arts in Teaching program.

The decision means students in Sweet Briar’s five-year MAT program, after taking undergraduate courses aimed at preparing them for special ed and inclusive classrooms, can be licensed to teach special ed as an add-on to their liberal studies (elementary) or secondary licensure.

After completing the five courses — Teaching Diverse Learners, Adapting for Diverse Learners, Classroom Management, Assessment in Special Education and Transition/Collaboration in Special Education — students spend part of their graduate year teaching in special ed and/or inclusive classrooms.

“This isn’t for weak sisters,” Jim Alouf, education professor and director of the College’s graduate programs, said. “It’s a challenging program.”

The state’s decision is good news, not only for Virginia — which Alouf says is short about 4,800 special ed teachers — but also for Sweet Briar. “In the past, we couldn’t license special ed teachers, but now we can,” he said.

“It helps the state, but it also helps the students. It gives them licensing options that they didn’t have before. In that sense, it’s a real plus. … Our whole program is really dedicated to differentiated instruction and that’s exactly what a special ed teacher does. It dovetails really well.”

Alouf gives credit to Dena Lowman and Margaret Ann White, education faulty members and teachers at the Sweet Briar Campus School, who were key in developing the program. They “did the lion’s share of the work,” he said, matching courses taught at Sweet Briar to the various competencies required by the state.

“[There is a] set of regulations, a matrix, that you have to meet as far as teacher preparation is concerned and we had to plan courses that met those regulations,” White explained.

When they started the approval process, Sweet Briar offered only one special ed course, The Exceptional Learner — now called Teaching Diverse Learners — which White described as “an exposure class to children with special needs. It was already in the liberal studies and secondary programs. We added four more courses.”

The campus school, which includes preschool and kindergarten, makes an effort to enroll special needs children, White said, in part so that the College’s teacher licensure candidates can work with “atypical preschoolers.”

As part of their coursework, students work with special needs children at the campus school or in Amherst County’s public schools. These working relationships led the College to create the special ed program.

“The interest in those experiences was so positive that the students started asking for more,” White said. “Where can we take more classes? How can we find out more about working with children with autism and children with disabilities?’ Because of their interest, we decided to follow up on it and develop the program.”

Rebecca Soliwoda ’08, an MAT student from Massachusetts, was delighted to hear about the state’s approval. “I am so excited about the state’s decision!” she wrote in an e-mail. “It was a long process and I know how hard my teachers, Mrs. Lowman and Mrs. White, worked in order to make the program possible.”

Soliwoda, who is currently working as a lead teacher in the campus school’s summer program, will graduate with an MAT next May. She plans to stay in Virginia to teach and believes with the new licensure, she’ll be ready for whatever happens.

“I think it’s important for every teacher to have a background in [special ed], especially with the new move towards inclusion,” she said. “Special education was never really a focus for me; it was what I felt was necessary to be the best all-around teacher possible.

“In order to do that, I needed to know how to suit all of my students, special education or regular education. I think Sweet Briar is on the right track by offering new options for teacher licensure. When I graduate … I will feel fully equipped to meet classroom challenges as a result of Sweet Briar’s education program.”

White agreed. “We’re very pleased with the program and we’re very pleased that it’s an add-on and never intended for it to stand by itself,” she said. “It’s really for our regular ed teachers to know different strategies that might work for that child who just is not making progress, to know behavior management strategies for a child who’s not following directions … to know different agencies to send parents to.

“There are just lots of benefits. … for the regular and special ed teacher. I personally think it makes them tremendously marketable. I think it’s something that’s hard to beat anywhere in the state of Virginia.”