Special education organizations devote significant attention to recruiting and developing educators, but another workforce challenge is often less visible: Who will lead these programs, schools, and organizations next? Strong special education leadership does not happen by accident. Yet many organizations wait until a leadership vacancy occurs to begin thinking about succession. At the same time, talented practitioners and emerging leaders may have limited opportunities to build the supervisory, strategic, organizational, and people-leadership skills required for their next role.

Join Dr. Mitch Yell as he discusses least restrictive environments for students.

Join CEC and the Small Special Education Programs Caucus (SSEPC) in this three-part professional development series focusing on navigating through professional life in academia. Sessions will center around collaborating and networking, the world of manuscripts and grants, and using AI in your professional life and beyond.

Get to Know SRSD: an evidence-based approach that makes the thinking behind writing visible. Explore practical strategies for explicitly teaching writing and self-regulation while helping all students become more confident, strategic, and independent writers.

This session presents a quality-of-life framework for supporting autistic learners, organized through a Multi-Tiered System of Supports. Best practice is defined not as reducing behavior or completing work, but as building conditions for participation, communication, belonging, and access to meaningful routines — so goals are selected for real-world significance and generalization rather than ease of measurement.

Special education leaders make consequential decisions every day about staffing, resources, programming, professional development, organizational priorities, and growth. Each decision may be reasonable on its own—but over time, competing pressures can create distance between what an organization says it values and what its systems, budgets, and leadership choices actually prioritize. This webinar explores how leaders can use mission as an active decision-making tool rather than simply an aspirational statement. Participants will be introduced to SELP’s Mission Protection Framework™, a practical approach for examining major organizational decisions through a student-centered lens and asking whether choices protect mission, strengthen program quality, support the professionals who serve students, and advance meaningful student outcomes.