THE COMMONWEALTH SPECIAL EDUCATION ENDORSEMENT (CSEEP) PROGRAM: MAXIMIZING STUDENT SUCCESS THROUGH HIGH QUALITY TEACHER PREPARATION

At any given time, approximately 2,500 teachers hold provisional special education licensure in Virginia and must complete additional course work to become endorsed fully. As an alternative licensure program, CSEEP is a technology-rich, approach to teacher preparation in special education with the goal of providing a readily accessible path to high quality course work and full licensure for provisionally licensed special education teachers across the Commonwealth of Virginia and, in doing so, to ensure a high-quality education for Virginia’s children with disabilities. Although many individuals in Virginia have limited access to traditional teacher preparation due to geographic, financial, and time barriers, CSEEP is able to provide evidence-based course work ameliorating these barriers to Virginia’s provisionally licensed special educators, helping to ensure that Virginia’s K-12 students with disabilities have well-prepared, fully licensed teachers. The CSEEP program has prepared over 1830 special education teachers for full licensure and has served 125 of Virginia’s school divisions and state-operated programs. Grant finishers have proven to be teachers who are well equipped to meet the diverse academic and behavioral needs of their students. Characteristics critical to the success of the Commonwealth Special Education Endorsement Program include: collaboration, a variety of course formats, full access to ODU’s student supports, and course work options. These characteristics, as well as the importance of each to the overall success of students, will be discussed. Additionally, program evaluation data will be presented.