| Locating qualified administrators to supervise and coordinate special education services is a challenge for many school districts in New York State. School districts are becoming aware of the need to keep their administrators satisfied and meet their personal and professional goals in a mutually conducive climate. The study was designed to provide measurable factors of Special Education Administrators' perceptions of job satisfaction and components that contribute to satisfaction from their work. The entire population of Special Education Administrators in New York State was surveyed in this descriptive study. The study provides indicators of how educational systems can attend to the satisfaction of their administrators by focusing on qualities that affect their career attitudes, productivity and career longevity.;The research involved surveying the entire population of Special Education Administrators in New York State including 702 school districts and 38 Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). A demographic questionnaire and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ-Short Form) were administered. An interview was conducted with a sample of the population to clarify responses from the questionnaires. The components of job satisfaction that were studied included age, gender, educational attainment, salary, size and economic status of the district, employment history, and experiential background.;Respondents indicated a satisfied level of overall job satisfaction, 3.47 as measured by the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire's five-point scale. New York State Special Education Administrators connect higher levels of job satisfaction to intrinsic components of job satisfaction (social service, ability utilization, and activity) than to extrinsic components of job satisfaction (district policies, recognition, and authority).;Data analyses included rank order and frequency distribution of the job satisfaction components including overall, extrinsic, and intrinsic; and appropriate measures of association (ex. Gamma, Lambda). The average age of the survey respondents is 45 to 55 years old with 68% reported as females. Respondents from Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) have the highest overall, intrinsic, and extrinsic satisfaction scores. The size of the organization has an impact on the satisfaction level of the respondents. The curvilinear relationship among special education administrators from the smallest school districts and largest school districts are more satisfied than respondents from average size school districts. The study will contribute to the special education field through its implications for employment practices, education and training of leaders, employee satisfaction and professional development. |
