Comparing Social Media Platforms for Recruiting Special Education Teachers in High-Need Areas

This presentation discusses the effectiveness of using four social media platforms to recruit special education teachers in high-need areas. The project was funded through the CEEDAR Center from the University of Florida to increase enrollment in an initial certification MAT Special Education program with the goal of recruiting more qualified teachers in high-need areas. Geofencing was used with Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to target three counties in one state with the highest number of out-of-field or uncertified teachers employed as teachers of record in special education classrooms. The advertising campaign ran for three months during the peak of the admission season. The number of impressions, clicks, click-through rate, cost-per-click, conversations, and total costs were used to determine the effectiveness of each platform. Overall, results were mixed as one platform gathered the most impressions while another resulted in more click/conversations to applications.