25 of the Highest Paying Special Education Jobs in 2024

The best Special Education jobs can pay up to $121,500 per year.

High Paying Special Education Jobs

• Special Education Director

  Salary range: $85,000-$121,500 per year

  Special education directors oversee special education programs in individual schools or for many schools in a school district. They ensure that teachers implement processes and strategies to assist students with mental, behavioral, physical, or other learning disabilities. As a special education director, your job duties include analyzing assessments to determine the best learning plan for each student’s needs, applying for and confirming compliance of grants, leading professional development and continuing education courses for special education staff, and evaluating program effectiveness. The special education director is an administrative position, so you need a combination of experience in the education field and strong leadership skills to perform well in this career.

• Special Education Administrator

  Salary range: $62,500-$117,500 per year

  A Special Education Administrator holds a coordinator position within a school district. They help hire, train, and supervise special education teachers and make sure the school is following best practices in special education. They assist with administrative tasks within the special education department and coordinate relationships between students, their families, and the school’s special education team. They ensure that the district meets local, state, and federal credentialing requirements and that documentation is submitted on time for re-certification. Special Education Administrators help schedule and attend IEP meetings; they may also float within the school and provide classroom support and supervision if needed. Those in this role help represent the school’s resources, so they likely attend and network at special events like open houses and field days.

• Education Specialist

  Salary range: $65,000-$116,500 per year

  An education specialist works with teachers and administrators to develop new teaching methods, curriculum, and assessment methods. Your career can be at a public school, charter school, or private school. Your primary duties and responsibilities are to observe current teachers and students, analyze student assessments, and determine what changes may be needed. Some specialize in particular areas, such as dual language immersion or technology implementation. Another part of the job is to communicate student development and progress directly with parents and guardians and consult with administrators and guidance counselors about student progress. Qualifications include a master’s degree or a doctorate in education and classroom experience.

• School Resource Officer

  Salary range: $45,500-$111,000 per year

  As a school resource officer (SRO), you are a law enforcement officer who works in schools in the community. Your responsibilities are to ensure the safety of students and school staff, serve as a mentor to the young people at the school, and build positive relationships between law enforcement and members of the community. Your job duties include running programs in the school to promote a culture of safety and respect, assisting with student discipline when criminal activity is involved, and reporting to your police precinct.

• Special Education Supervisor

  Salary range: $67,500-$103,500 per year

  A special education supervisor oversees other special education teachers to ensure they are meeting the needs of their students. Your duties are to provide orientation and training assistance for new faculty, work with teachers to make plans for changes in curriculum, and interact with other administrators regarding the department or program’s operations, expenses, and human resources needs. You also meet with parents and guardians to discuss the continued education of their children. You may work at a specific school or supervise a district-wide program.

• Orientation and Mobility Specialist

  Salary range: $66,500-$103,000 per year

  An orientation and mobility specialist is a health care professional who works with people of all ages who are blind or have visual impairments, to learn the skills to be able to move safely and independently and accomplish daily tasks. Often patients require orientation and mobility specialists when they are in rehabilitation after an injury or surgery that affects their vision. Orientation and mobility specialists work in a variety of therapeutic settings including hospitals, schools, within the community, and in visually impaired people’s homes to teach patients how to use their other senses, tools such as canes, and systems they develop to accomplish their mobility needs.

• Adaptive Physical Education Teacher

  Salary range: $48,500-$85,000 per year

  The Individuals with Disabilities Act provides adaptive physical education for students who have a disability such as visual or orthopedic impairment, developmental disabilities, or other challenges. As an adaptive physical education teacher, you provide a specialized treatment plan as part of the student’s individualized education program (IEP). The plan includes assessment of the student’s gross motor skills, ongoing physical instruction, routine evaluation of progress, and modification activities as needed. Your duties and responsibilities as adapted physical education professional are to help children overcome or adapt to a disability, and you play an important role in your students’ physical, mental, and emotional development.

• Special Education Coordinator

  Salary range: $50,000-$84,000 per year

  The job duties and responsibilities of a special education coordinator involve working to manage the special education program in a school or a school district. In this career, you plan and implement educational programs for children with developmental, physical, mental, and psychological disabilities. You may design curriculum and classroom strategies for special education students, ensure adequate special education staffing, and assess the level of assistance that special education students need. You work with teachers to help meet the needs of these students in specialized classrooms or a regular classroom setting.

• Educational Diagnostician

  Salary range: $59,000-$76,500 per year

  An educational diagnostician or assessor evaluates students with learning challenges and identifies particular issues they may have. As an educational diagnostician, your responsibilities include conducting educational and emotional assessments for children of all ages. You record collected data and ensure the evaluation is done ethically and according to protocol. Your job is to develop a clearer understanding of the student’s educational needs and emotional well-being so teachers can best serve them.

• Special Education Administrative Assistant

  Salary range: $37,000-$72,000 per year

  As a special education administrative assistant, you assist the special education director or supervisor with fulfilling their job duties. You provide technical and administrative support in their office, give information on the school district's special education program, record decisions for other employees to reference, and ensure the district meets the unique special needs of all students. Special education administrative assistants often maintain a calendar, schedule meetings, perform internal and external communication, assist school employees, screen telephones, and manage office mail. Your responsibilities may also include managing a special services filing system, ensuring the accuracy of confidential personnel files, editing paperwork, and completing local, state, and federal reports.

• Reading Specialist

  Salary range: $47,000-$68,500 per year

  A reading specialist works mainly with young children having trouble with reading, both one-on-one and in groups. K-6 is the most common age group to work with, but there are coaches for older students and adults as well. As a reading specialist, you are trained to improve reading skills to the appropriate grade level and use various teaching strategies to improve comprehension while making the process enjoyable for students. Responsibilities include assessing current reading skill level, identifying the areas that need improvement, and creating plans and goals to ensure the student makes the desired progress.

• ICT Teacher

  Salary range: $37,500-$68,500 per year

  An ICT teacher provides instruction in basic information and communication technology (ICT) skills to students at all levels of education. As an ICT teacher, your job duties include planning lessons that correspond to your students’ ability level, facilitating class activities, and providing feedback to students about their work and progress in ICT. To teach an integrated class that includes students with special needs or disabilities, you must differentiate your lessons to accommodate the unique learning requirements of those students.

• Special Education Case Manager

  Salary range: $47,000-$68,000 per year

  As a special education case manager, your job is to ensure each child with an IEP gets the help and support they need. In this role, you may work with students to identify and resolve any problems with their education, make sure each employee who offers instruction to them understands their needs, and otherwise ensure that the school meets its legal obligations to each student. You may also explain the responsibilities of working with special needs students, clarify any daily duties, and make sure staff have the right qualifications and skills. This position is often advertised as an IEP case manager instead of a special education case manager.

• Special Education Teacher

  Salary range: $50,000-$66,000 per year

  A special education teacher is a teacher who has received additional training and acquired the proper certifications needed to provide educational services to children with special needs. These needs can include learning, physical, and emotional disabilities. Children who face these challenges often learn differently, and so special education teachers develop programs and methods that present material in a way that suits the child’s need.

• Disability Services Coordinator

  Salary range: $49,500-$64,500 per year

  A disability services coordinator works with special needs students and their families. In addition to informing them of available services and accommodations, they conduct an assessment to determine the services that will be needed. Other duties include the planning, implementation, and evaluation of support programs and activities, including early intervention services. A disability services coordinator may also coordinate faculty workshops or work with teachers individually to help them learn assistive technology. They are expected to be aware of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act to ensure compliance with federal and state laws.

• Gifted Teacher

  Salary range: $50,000-$64,000 per year

  A gifted teacher is an education professional who specializes in educating academically gifted students. As a gifted teacher, your responsibilities include identifying students who may benefit from advanced instruction, introducing them to the gifted program at your school, and providing advanced lessons that challenge them and meet their special education needs. Your job as their teacher is to foster their talent through a unique education program that promotes growth and creativity and covers their primary education as well.

• Deaf and Hard of Hearing Teacher

  Salary range: $39,000-$64,000 per year

  A deaf and hard of hearing teacher is responsible for teaching students that are hearing impaired and creating a support system for those students. Your duties in this career include working in either a school for the deaf or a deaf education classroom within a public school, planning instructions and lessons for general education, recording student progress, and evaluating changes needed for individuals. You also meet with parents and aides to provide services and resources, such as amplification devices, to assist your students. You are also in charge of helping students with social and emotional development.

• Special Education Resource Teacher

  Salary range: $48,000-$64,000 per year

  Special education resource teachers work with students who have special needs in their regular classroom or a separate, designated classroom. As a special education resource teacher, you focus on providing extra help and individualized learning techniques to students with disabilities or special needs. Your job duties include collaborating with other teachers to determine how to best modify lessons based on each student’s individual needs, working with your students to enable them to learn at their pace, and communicating progress and challenges to parents. The qualifications for a career as a special education resource teacher are a bachelor’s or master’s degree in education or a related field and a teaching certification. You also need a lot of patience, compassion, and excellent interpersonal skills. As you gain experience, you can seek administrative positions to oversee special education programs at your school or districtwide.

• Dyslexia Teacher

  Salary range: $55,500-$64,000 per year

  Dyslexia teachers work with students diagnosed with dyslexia to provide them with skills and strategies that enable them to further their reading abilities. As a dyslexia teacher, your duties include providing specialized attention and using specific training programs both in general classroom settings and in specialist classrooms and programs. To qualify for this role, you need to meet minimum teacher qualifications, including a license, and you should have superior teaching skills with a focus in learning disabilities. To ready yourself for the responsibilities for the position, you need to complete both the coursework and practicum of an accredited training program that focuses on dyslexia teaching.

• Reading Coach

  Salary range: $47,000-$64,000 per year

  A reading coach, sometimes called a literacy coach or reading specialist, works with students who are struggling to read at their grade level. As a reading coach, you specialize in literacy instruction. Your job duties include identifying students who need extra reading instruction, collaborating with teachers to design interventions, working with students one-on-one or in small group settings, and evaluating student learning as the school year progresses. You must determine whether your interventions are improving students’ reading skills or not. If not, your job is to create new interventions that may be more effective.

• American Sign Language Teacher

  Salary range: $46,000-$63,500 per year

  An American sign language teacher helps students learn sign language. They may teach sign language to a student of any age, whether they are a deaf or hearing person. The typical goal of someone in this position is to help people become fluent in ASL. An ASL teacher may work for a school, organization, or independently. Some teachers offer their lessons online so that they can reach more students.

• Early Childhood Special Education Teacher

  Salary range: $40,000-$63,000 per year

  Working as an early childhood special education teacher requires special qualifications and extensive skills because you interact with and teach students with learning challenges, developmental concerns, and physical disabilities. Your responsibilities focus on students in preschool, and you aim to provide adaptive teaching based on the individual child. Your duties include providing a structured environment, assisting students physically when necessary, communicating with parents, providing additional resources for the family, administering tests, determining a child's needs and potential, tracking student progress, building social skills, and collaborating with other teachers. You may also work on building skills to help them adapt to general education classes.

• Reading Intervention Teacher

  Salary range: $48,000-$63,000 per year

  A reading intervention teacher helps teach students developing behind their age group in literacy. For reading intervention, their responsibilities include assessing students’ literacy level, determining what factors or learning disabilities are causing delays, and designing and implementing a plan to help the student learn more efficiently. They work in a classroom or resource room, helping students and their teachers by providing support and adapting lessons when needed, or working with individual or small groups of students on things such as vocabulary and comprehension. Most districts require a bachelor’s degree in reading for this position, as well as a teaching license. Some may also require a master’s degree in reading or education, or additional experience with children.

• Educational Interpreter

  Salary range: $31,000-$63,000 per year

  An educational interpreter assists deaf and hearing impaired students or those who do not speak English, in an educational setting. These students often have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) that indicates the student is required to have an interpreter work with them in the classroom. Duties may include standing next to the teacher or presenter and interpreting or working one-on-one with the student to translate spoken word into either American Sign Language (ASL) or another spoken language. Qualifications of an educational interpreter include training and certification in the language with which you plan to work and experience in an educational setting. Jobs as an educational interpreter can lead to a long-term career with a school district.

• Inclusion Teacher

  Salary range: $54,500-$61,500 per year

  As an inclusion teacher, your job is to teach in a classroom that has one or more special education students. Inclusion teachers work at all grade levels and in all subjects, though most specialize in specific grades and topics. Fulfilling the responsibilities and duties of an inclusion teacher often requires collaborating with regular teachers, managing the education plans of students with congenital disabilities, and planning activities that emphasize inclusion and integration. Inclusion teachers also document efforts, attend meetings with parents, track the progress of each student, and make suggestions for ways to help each student attain their educational goals. Flexibility and creativity are particularly helpful for this role.

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