Manhattan ? A Manhattan school district program helps prospective special education teachers pay the cost of meeting certification requirements by attending Kansas State University classes.

“All around the state,” said district administrator Pam Russell, “special education is one of those areas that districts tend not to have a lot of applications, even though we’re pretty fortunate in Manhattan, located right here by K-State, ‘the teacher factory.”‘

Still, the number of qualified special education applicants has not kept pace with the district’s demand for certified teachers. So a year ago, Russell began using a new program called “Grow Your Own Grant.” It’s supported by a federal grant that pays the tuition of on-the-job district educators who agree to enroll in classes that lead to special education certification, or the completion of college degrees.

This fall, 16 on-the-job educators in the Manhattan school district are participating in the program, with each participant enrolled in one or two three-credit-hour courses.

“Special ed teachers are hard to find,” Russell said. “There just aren’t enough of them, so part of the premise of this grant is if we can help people pay for some of that special certification, it’s going to benefit the district.”

Thirteen of the district’s participants are full-time teachers who are seeking to complete 30 credit hours required for special education certification, which will augment the college degrees they already have earned. Three others are working as classroom para-educators, a classification for employees who plan to complete a college degree while involved in the grant program, Russell said.

“I suspect that without the grant program, some of my teachers would not be able to go back to school,” Russell said. “So we can keep them in a good job and support them with tuition assistance.”