Written by Ann Potter, MSM, MEd
After many years in education, I have learned that one of the most important things we can provide our students is consistent support. Students need to know who will be there for them, what is expected of them, and what will happen when they make a good choice or a poor one. Consistent support helps build trust, strengthens relationships, and encourages student success. This is especially true for students who struggle with behavior, emotional regulation, academics, or relationships with adults and peers. Unfortunately, schools do not always have the staffing necessary to provide consistent support. When full-time positions remain unfilled, teachers and staff members who are already stretched thin often shoulder the responsibility. Even under these circumstances, schools can still provide meaningful, dependable, consistent support to students.
It is worth noting that consistent support is not the same thing as coverage. Coverage means a particular person is present…someone has been hired to be at a specific place every day providing defined support. Consistent support means a student encounters the same response to the same situation regardless of who is present that day. This requires a design or plan that provides support regardless of staff. When discussing staffing, consistency and coverage are often treated as the same. They are not. Both support students, but one requires a specific staff member, and the other requires an effective system.
“Consistent support means a student encounters the same response to the same situation regardless of who is present that day. This requires a design or plan that provides support regardless of staff.”
I have worked in settings where the response to seeking more support is, “We are really trying to hire someone, but the market is extremely tight right now.” I have come to realize, and I am sure I am not alone, that is not really a plan. The scale of current staff shortages is staggering.
The Learning Policy Institute’s 2026 scan found roughly 37,600 teaching positions unfilled and about 387,800 teachers working without full certification for their assignment, which together come to about one in eight positions nationally, and it was the third consecutive year those numbers rose. Special education remains one of the most persistent shortage areas; when a district’s entire support strategy depends on filling a role, the strategy has a single point of failure in the least controllable part of the system.
Recognizing this reality does not mean accepting inadequate support for students. Instead, it means finding creative, lasting ways to use the people and resources available while continuing to search for additional staff. Providing consistent support is not simply about finding another person to enter the classroom; it is about designing a system that makes the work manageable for everyone.
“Special education remains one of the most persistent shortage areas; when a district’s entire support strategy depends on filling a role, the strategy has a single point of failure in the least controllable part of the system.”
Okay, so if you concede there is no new hire coming to help anytime soon, how do you construct a system that will provide consistent support to students? This requires effective communication, collaboration, planning, and intentional use of resources across the building.
First, look at what situations will require a consistent response across settings. When a school is short-staffed, one of the biggest dangers is inconsistency. One teacher may handle a behavior one way while another responds completely differently. A student may receive a consequence from one adult and little response from another. Expectations can become unclear, and students quickly recognize those differences. In my experience, students who struggle with behavior often need clearer boundaries than other students. These boundaries should be predictable, reasonable, and communicated in language that everyone understands.
For this reason, schools should establish a small number of common expectations and responses all staff can follow.
What happens when a student leaves the room? What happens when help is requested? What happens when a student reaches frustration level (as a result of their particular trigger)? As a team, agree on a specific protocol. The student will always know what to expect no matter which adult they interact with. You can’t plan for all the situations, but focus on the three or four most frequently encountered situations and have a plan. If respect, safety, responsibility, and appropriate classroom behavior are schoolwide expectations, students should hear those messages from every adult in the building.
Next, document behaviors of some of your more challenging students for whom support would be most helpful. This should not be an overwhelming task. It should provide information for when support would be most beneficial. A simple record of patterns, triggers, successful strategies, and significant incidents can help staff understand what is happening over time. For example, if a student consistently struggles during transitions, the team can develop a plan to make those transitions more predictable. If a particular approach consistently escalates a situation, staff can recognize that pattern and try something different. Communication among all adults involved is essential to provide coordinated, effective, consistent support.
Then, consider a flexible support system that can use existing staff more effectively. Using the data collected above, schools can develop schedules that identify when and where support is most needed, rather than assigning one support person to one classroom all day or on a rigid hourly schedule. For example, a paraprofessional can rotate among several students according to their individual schedules and needs. They could start the day supporting a classroom with high academic needs and then move to another classroom when additional assistance is needed. This approach allows limited staffing resources to reach more students while still providing predictable support. The key is consistency. Be aware that if staff are frequently moved between classrooms without clear direction, their impact can be reduced. Teachers should know when support will be available so they can plan lessons and interventions accordingly.
This approach does require the support and acceptance of everyone in the building. Administrators need to support targeted interventions where the highest need is demonstrated. Teachers need to be flexible in designing their schedules to take advantage of part-time support. Some unusual scheduling and groupings may be necessary to be most impactful in providing support with stretched resources.
As a veteran teacher, I will mention one resource that likely exists in your building and is frequently overlooked. In nearly every building, some teachers were trained before scripted programs and pacing calendars narrowed the job, who know how to look at a child and determine what that child is developmentally ready for, and who are currently being asked to deliver a script on schedule. That knowledge did not go anywhere. It sits in your building, underused, and in many cases those teachers have concluded nobody wants it anymore. Ask them. Give them time to coach a newer colleague. Tapping into this expertise will enhance the skill sets of everyone involved.
One caveat I must include with this approach for supporting more students with limited staff: If you have an unfilled position attached to service minutes you are legally obligated to deliver, none of the above is a substitute for that, and it should not be used as one. That is a compliance matter, and it needs to be resolved as a compliance matter. And if you have not tested the market in a while, or have not looked at whether the role could be structured part-time or shared across two districts, do that before you redesign anything. Sometimes the position is fillable in a shape nobody has tried yet.
What I have presented is system design work, and it is the work The Alliance partners with districts on. We do it alongside your leadership team rather than delivering a plan from a distance, because the people with the relevant expertise are already in the building. Districts usually start with a conversation about current conditions and what has already been tried, and some of those conversations end with us saying the district can do this without us.
If the specific gap is behavioral assessment sitting in a queue with nobody available to complete it, that is a different program. The Navigators is a supervised network of aspiring school-based behavior analysts who conduct functional behavior assessments for districts under experienced oversight, which is capacity you can use now without a full-time position attached to it.
As a teacher, I always felt challenged to meet the needs of all of my students when the district was under-resourced. I have come to believe that consistent support is one of the greatest gifts we can give a student. We may not always have enough staff, enough time, or enough resources, but we can still provide clear expectations, calm responses, positive relationships, and reasonable accountability. Those things do not require a perfect school. They require adults who are willing to keep showing up, keep communicating, and keep believing that even the most challenging student is capable of growth.
“We may not always have enough staff, enough time, or enough resources, but we can still provide clear expectations, calm responses, positive relationships, and reasonable accountability.”
