Special ed diaries: Teachers tell NPR about their most joyous, most difficult moments

What makes special education teaching jobs so hard to fill? NPR set out to find some answers by talking to more than a dozen teachers who do this work every day.

<img src='https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3201x2028+0+0/resize/3201x2028!/quality/85/format/webp/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F6e%2Fa0%2F4dab85e941dd800bb21716c15331%2Ffull-grid.jpg' alt='<strong>Top row (from left):</strong> Danalyn Garcia of Chicago Public Schools, Lucie Lane of Shawnee Mission School District in Kansas, Jeff Carroll of Newport News Public Schools in Virginia and Kaori Anderson-Walker of Boys' Latin of Philadelphia Charter School. <br><strong>Bottom row (from left):</strong> Paul Stone of Mt. Diablo Unified School District in California, Diana Swanson of Vail School District in Arizona, Kathleen Tejeda of Alvord Unified School District in California and Emily Ellis of Lexington School District Two in South Carolina.'/><p>What makes special education teaching jobs so hard to fill? NPR set out to find some answers by talking to more than a dozen teachers who do this work every day.</p><p>(Image credit: LA Johnson)</p><img src='https://media.npr.org/include/images/tracking/npr-rss-pixel.png?story=nx-s1-6000653' />