Who are Educational Specialists?
The term educational specialist includes non-teaching, non-administrative education professionals who provide a multitude of support services to students, teachers, and parents. Educational specialists include school counselors, school nurses, library media specialists, school psychologists, school social workers and others who have specialized training and offer a broad range of services to students. The key question, “With whom does the educational specialist work?” can help you determine which staff members belong to the educational specialist group. The term does not include non-certified, non-licensed staff, such as clerical assistants or custodians.
Educational Specialist Position Categories:
- Pupil personnel services could include school counselors, school nurses, school psychologists, and social workers.
- Instructional support services could include library media specialists, instructional coaches, and instructional technology specialists.
- Special education services could include occupational therapists and physical therapists, and speech and language pathologists.
Purposes and Characteristics
The Primary purposes of ESPES are the following:
- optimize student learning and growth,
- improve the quality of instruction by ensuring accountability for learner performance and educational specialist effectiveness,
- contribute to successful achievement of the goal and objectives defined in the vision, mission, and goals of the school district,
- provide a basis for instructional improvement through productive educational specialist performance appraisal and professional growth, and
- implement a performance evaluation system that promotes collaboration between the educational specialist and evaluator and promotes self-growth, instructional effectiveness, and improvement of overall job performance.
The distinguishing characteristics of the Educational Specialist Performance Evaluation System:
- a focus on the relationship between professional performance based on multiple data sources,
- sample performance indicators for each of the educational specialist performance standards,
- a system for documenting educational specialist performance based on multiple data sources,
- a procedure for conducting performance reviews that stresses accountability, promotes professional improvement, and increases the involvement of educational specialist in the evaluation process, and
- a support system for providing assistance when needed.