She leaves and documents her hour with him. He rejoins the class noisily and vies for attention from the children near him. He's one more day behind in learning math. Aides, nearly three thousand of them, are the front line of special education in Vermont. They are the people teaching the children.
Aides are always in short supply.
There are no educational requirements. Talk to the classroom teacher. Vermont's policy is to keep most special ed students in regular classrooms, about 85 percent of them compared to 45 percent nationwide. This puts the responsibility most heavily on classroom teachers, who also have little if any training in special ed, and little time for it. People usually think the special educators are the people teaching children with special needs.