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.
But these specialized professionals are primarily pushing paperwork and attending meetings. They have the heart for this work and the education, but they're given little time to teach. The alternative used in most other states is to have special education classrooms where seriously disabled children are taught directly by qualified special education teachers. The federal law requires children to be educated in the least restrictive environment. It was Vermont's choice to translate that to policy that keeps nearly all special education children mainstreamed with their age-peers, even if they can't do the work Special educators became consultants to classroom teachers.