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Preschool Special Education Teacher Career Assessment

The earliest help, on the floor, with the family in the room

Section 1 of 11

Welcome

Preschool special education teachers work with children about three, four, and five years old who have a disability or a delay. Some are not talking yet. Some cannot yet walk, chew, point, or sit with a group. Some hear or see differently than other children. Your job is to find out exactly what each child needs and teach it, mostly through play.

This is the earliest teaching job there is, and it is the one with the best odds. A skill taught at four is far cheaper and far easier to build than the same skill taught at eleven. This page will show you what the work really is, what it pays in North Dakota, and whether it fits you.

This takes about 15 minutes.

What is a Preschool Special Education Teacher?

A preschool special education teacher teaches young children with disabilities and delays. You screen and assess each child to find out what they can do now. You write an Individualized Education Program, called an IEP, that says in writing what you will teach, how you will teach it, and how you will know it worked. Then you teach it — sitting on the floor, at a sand table, in a play kitchen, on a swing. You teach a child to ask for juice with a picture card instead of screaming. You teach another one to tolerate a sock. You teach a third to take one turn in a game. You work next to the speech therapist, the occupational therapist, the physical therapist, and often a nurse. And you work with parents constantly, because a three year old goes home to them, and what you build at school falls apart if it does not also happen at home. Some of these children come to you out of the birth-to-three early intervention system; part of your job is making that handoff go well.

A preschool special education teacher works one on one with a child.

The Reality: Say this part out loud: at this age you are often the person who says the hard thing first. Parents may hear "your child has a disability" for the first time from you, or from a meeting you sat in. That conversation is part of the job and it never gets easy. The rest of the hard part is physical and it is constant — you are on the floor, you lift children, you handle toileting, and you will be hit, scratched, or bitten by a child who has no other way yet to say no. None of that makes these children tragedies. They are three year olds. But you should walk in knowing what the day costs your body and your nerves.

Your Responsibilities:

You catch a child at the age when teaching them a skill is still cheap and fast.

A Day in the Life

A preschool special education teacher meets with a parent and a colleague.

7:30 AM — In early. Set up three play stations, charge the speech device, and read the note a parent sent about a rough night.

8:15 AM — Children arrive. One will not come off the bus. You go out, crouch down, and wait her out instead of pulling her.

8:45 AM — Circle time. Short — eight minutes — because that is what this group can hold. Two children have their own seats and their own jobs.

9:15 AM — Play stations. You sit on the floor with one child on a single goal: pointing at what he wants. You mark data on a clipboard sticker sheet.

10:15 AM — The occupational therapist works in your room while you teach. You both watch the same child and compare notes in thirty seconds between activities.

11:00 AM — Snack and toileting. Two children need full help. This takes half an hour and it is teaching, not babysitting.

12:30 PM — An IEP meeting with a family, a translator, and four staff. You explain the evaluation in plain words and answer the question the parents are really asking: will he be okay?

2:30 PM — Children go home. You write the data up, email two parents, and plan tomorrow around the child who had the worst day.

You spend almost the whole day at floor level, and the paperwork waits until the children are gone.

Training in North Dakota

A four-year degree, a North Dakota teaching license, and an early childhood special education credential. This is a licensed teaching job, not a child care job. You need a bachelor’s degree from an approved teacher preparation program and a North Dakota license from the Education Standards and Practices Board, usually called ESPB. Early childhood special education is one of the credential areas ESPB names. There is more than one honest road in, including one that starts with a job you can get now.

Training Pathways:

Where to Train in North Dakota:

Before You Start: A high school diploma or GED to start the degree. You will write a great deal — IEPs, evaluations, and data notes are writing. Teacher preparation programs have a GPA gate partway through; UND asks for at least 2.75. A fingerprint background check is required before you can be licensed or placed with children. For the paraprofessional route you can start with a high school diploma and the twenty hours of inservice training.

Tip: Start with financial aid and scholarships. Fill out the FAFSA, ask the school’s financial aid office what you qualify for, and ask an employer whether they help pay for school. That is where the money starts. After that, a career counselor or Job Service North Dakota may be able to help with what is left over, like tuition, books, a laptop, or exam fees. What can be paid for depends on the program and on your own situation, so ask before you enroll rather than after. Worth asking about specifically: two-year degrees that train you for a job, like civil engineering technology, land surveying, mechatronics, electronics, or instrumentation. North Dakota two-year colleges also cost far less than a university. Ask about paid summer internships too — engineering firms, plants, and survey crews hire students while they are still in school.

Certification & Licensing

North Dakota licenses you personally, through the Education Standards and Practices Board. ESPB issues the teaching license and the special education endorsements. The endorsement areas ESPB names are Specific Learning Disabilities (LD), Emotional Disabilities (ED), Intellectual Disabilities (ID), the Strategist endorsement that combines LD, ED, and ID, and separate areas in hearing impairment, visual impairment, early childhood special education, and gifted and talented. Early childhood special education is the one that matches this job.

How You Get and Keep the Credential in North Dakota:

The Exams: North Dakota requires all three Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators tests: Reading (5713, qualifying score 156, minimum 149), Writing (5723, qualifying score 160, minimum 153), and Math (5733, qualifying score 150, minimum 143). ESPB also accepts a composite of 466 as long as no single score falls below that test’s minimum. You also take a subject test for your licensure area, and ESPB’s first special education licensure option is built on passing a special education Praxis test. ESPB does not publish the subject test codes and cut scores on its testing page, so confirm the exact early childhood special education test and score with ESPB before you register (nd.gov/espb/licensure/testing-information).

Cost: From the ESPB fee list: initial application $30, fingerprinting $44.50, Initial In-State two-year license $85, two-year renewal $65, five-year license $140, endorsements $80 each, Alternate Access License $165, Interim Substitute License $95, transcript review $175, and a $100 late fee if a license lapses. A $5 maintenance charge is added to new applications. The degree is the real expense, not the fees.

Keeping It Current: ESPB renews the five-year license when you have at least 30 days under contract and six semester hours of continuing education. A Plan on File renews yearly, up to three years, and only if you keep showing coursework progress and your administrator asks again in writing. Districts pay more for graduate credits and a master’s degree, which is why so many special education teachers take summer classes — it covers renewal and moves you up the pay scale at the same time.

Salary & Job Outlook

North Dakota Preschool Special Education Teacher Pay (May 2025) — yearly contract pay:

What that means: Teachers are paid on a yearly contract, not by the hour, so the numbers above are yearly pay. Your district’s salary schedule is what tells you exactly what each step and each year of experience pays. Now the useful part: this job pays far better than regular preschool teaching. The middle preschool special education teacher in North Dakota earns about $60,060 a year, while the middle regular ND preschool teacher earns about $39,720. That is roughly $20,000 a year for the license and the credential. The bottom tenth here is about $50,160, which is well above the national bottom of $45,620 for this job. The trade-off is at the top: the ND top tenth is about $81,240 while the national top tenth is about $130,040, because a few states pay special education teachers far more than North Dakota does. Pay rises with years taught and with graduate credits, and ND district salary schedules are public, so you can look up exactly what any district pays before you apply.

Jobs in North Dakota: About 80 people do this work in ND today. By 2034, that should be about 90 (about 6% growth). Expect about 10 job openings every year in ND from growth and people retiring or changing jobs. Across the U.S., the change is about 1% growth — slower than average.

Outlook: Small but steady, and better than the country. O*NET shows North Dakota going from about 80 preschool special education teachers in 2024 to about 90 in 2034, roughly 6% growth, with about 10 openings a year. Nationally the job grows only about 1%. Ten openings a year is a small number — this is the smallest of the four special education jobs in this group — so be ready to move for a job or to start in a nearby special education role and wait for the preschool one. What is in your favor is that ESPB declared all content areas critical shortage teaching positions at its March 12, 2026 meeting for the 2026-2027 school year, and special education is among the hardest of all to fill.

Who Hires in ND: Public school districts with preschool and pre-kindergarten classrooms, multi-district special education units (in North Dakota many small districts share one), Head Start and Early Head Start programs, tribal Head Start and FACE programs, and the early intervention system that hands children over at age three.

Work Setting: A bright, low room with a carpet square, small chairs, a bathroom right off the classroom, and usually a quiet corner for a child who needs to leave the group. You share the room with paraeducators and with therapists who come in and out. The school calendar applies, though many programs run an extended school year in the summer for the children who lose skills over a long break. You will be outside in North Dakota winter, because young children still go out.

Physical Demands: Very high, and people underestimate it. You are on the floor, kneeling, and squatting all day. You lift and carry children who weigh 30 to 45 pounds, and some who use wheelchairs, standers, or gait trainers and need two-person transfers. You do toileting and feeding. You will be hit, scratched, kicked, or bitten by a child who has no words yet for no — that is communication, not malice, and your job is to teach a better way to say it, but your body still takes it. Your knees, your back, and your voice are the parts that wear out.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, North Dakota, May 2025 (SOC 25-2051); North Dakota and U.S. long-term employment projections 2024–2034, via O*NET OnLine. Numbers are rounded.

Where This Leads

Path 1: Preschool Special Education Teacher — Run your own early childhood special education room.

Path 2: Early Intervention Specialist — Work with children under three, often in their homes.

Path 3: Elementary Special Education Teacher — Follow the same children up into school-age grades.

Path 4: Behavior Specialist — Add behavior coursework and help across a whole district.

Path 5: Deaf/Hard of Hearing or Visual Impairment Teacher — Add a specialty endorsement; these are rare and in demand.

Path 6: Special Education Director — Add a master’s and the DPI director credential and lead the program.

The Real Talk

What's Great:

What's Hard:

Be Honest: Can you be down at floor level for a whole day and lift a forty-pound child safely? Can you get hit by a three year old and come back the next morning with nothing held against her? Can you write clearly and on time, every time, because an IEP is a legal document and yours will be read? And can you sit with a parent who is grieving something, tell the truth kindly, and not promise what you cannot deliver?

Part 1: What Attracts You?

What draws you to preschool special education?

Part 2: Are You Ready?

1. I can be on the floor, kneeling and squatting, all day.
2. I can lift and carry a 40-pound child safely.
3. I am OK with toileting, feeding, and dressing as part of teaching.
4. I stay calm when a child hits, bites, or screams.
5. I can write clearly and hit legal deadlines.
6. I can talk honestly and kindly with a parent who is upset.
7. I can work all day beside other adults in my room.
8. I am willing to move or commute for a job, because the openings are few.

Part 3: Your Next Move

What's your plan?

Your Preschool Special Education Teacher Assessment Results

Sources & Learn More

Everything on this page comes from these sources. Each one opens the page the information came from, so you can check it yourself or keep reading.

Career information
Preschool Special Education Teacher on O*NET OnLine — what the job involves, the skills it uses, and related jobs.
Pay and employment data
North Dakota pay for Preschool Special Education Teachers — from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, May 2025.
North Dakota job outlook, 2024–2034 — state projections from Projections Central.
Education and training
North Dakota schools that train Preschool Special Education Teachers — colleges and programs in this state, with how many people finished recently. From the U.S. Department of Labor, using federal college data (IPEDS).
More career exploration
RUReady.ND.gov career planning — North Dakota’s own career and college planning site. An account may be required.

Pay and outlook figures on this page were taken from the sources above in September 2026. Occupation code: 25-2051.00. Numbers are updated by the agencies over time, so check the links for the newest figures.