Marie is the Principal of a large private middle school, located just outside Philadelphia.  Her school, in a typical year, has approximately 500 students. She has a limited budget and even more limited resources.  She has over 100 students that require Special Needs support and four full-time staff members to work with them. In today’s school environment, she needs to find at least four additional professionals to work with students, two of which must be able to make home visits.  If Marie doesn’t solve her problem, so it fits the student’s needs, and her budget, she will be subject to significant government fines. She has to do something quickly to provide the support mandated for these students. Just as she is considering her options, another two IEP’s come across her desk.  Now she has two additional students to plan special education programs for. For the first time in her 20-year career, Marie realizes she has to find a solution to her problem…and quickly.

Since 1975, when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or (IDEA), was enacted, there has been a mandate that students between the ages of 3 and 21, with disabilities, be provided with a free and appropriate public school education, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).  Since IDEA’s inception, the number of students served by the Act has essentially doubled, which, according to NCES, “can be attributed to a rise in the percentage of students identified as having specific learning disabilities.” What this means, for administrators like Marie, is a greater need for “hands on” support from highly qualified professionals that may or may not be within her budgetary or head count constraints.

Marie is not the only administrator with these same concerns.  In reality, they are shared with a majority of schools – and school systems – across the country.  The problem is far greater then a human resources one, although the solution integrates human resources at its very core.  More and more frequently, schools are turning to educational staffing organizations like Therapy Source (http://www.txsource.net) out of Pennsylvania, to provide the solutions they need.  
According to Josh Cartagenova, CEO of Therapy Source, “there have been huge changes in the market over the past 20 years.  Diagnoses of various conditions have improved, and this the number of students receiving special education or therapy services has increased.  The result has been a heightened demand for our business. As student needs grow, the demand for our business grows because Special Education Departments need to maintain compliance with Federal and State regulations.”

The education sector has been tasked, as a result of regulations like IDEA and others, to do more with their budgets.  Budgets are increasing over time; however, so are the volume of students that need to be seen by therapists has also increased – but at a far greater rate.  According to Cartagenova, “With schools needing to allocate their funds more carefully than ever before, they often find that working with a staffing agency is a more practical way of utilizing state and local tax revenue.”