Career Paths

Administrator Career Path

1. Begin your career as a Sheppard Pratt School administrator or work your way up. 
2. As you master the classroom or your area of expertise, earn your Master’s degree, and embody the culture and values of the Sheppard Pratt Schools, you will be eligible for the role of coordinator or assistant principal. You will take ownership of programmatic responsibilities within a school, provision of staff oversight, and more.
3. As you consider pursuing your MSDE Administration certification, you'll be eligible for the role of Principal. You will have greater oversight of the day-to-day operations of a school and contact with the local school systems and various Sheppard Pratt entities. 
4. Education Directors round out our school administrator career path. Our school education directors serve as the administrative and instructional leaders for our schools; they also serve as the main point of contact for the Maryland State Department of Education

Behavior Specialist Career Path

1. Join one of Sheppard Pratt’s 12 special education schools as a resource specialist or educational assistant, providing emotional, behavioral, social, and academic support and monitoring for students.
2. As you earn your bachelor’s degree, get a promotion to the role of assistant behavior specialist. You will help support the school behavior specialist to develop behavioral programming, monitor program implementation, and train members of the behavioral school team.
3. The next step in your journey is earning your master’s degree and/or Board Certified Behavior Analyst® (BCBA®) certification– and a promotion to school behavior specialist. You will lead the development of behavioral assessments, serve as a resource to staff and families, develop individualized intervention plans, and supervise direct reports.
4. After serving as a school behavior specialist, you can be promoted to the lead behavior specialist role after completing the BACB 8-Hour Supervision Training. You will lead programming for an assigned school and provide clinical supervision to prospective BCBAs, helping to develop the next generation of behavior specialists.
5. As you continue growing in your role, you can grow into the role of regional behavior services manager. In this role, you will be responsible for behavioral management programming across a region of schools; train other behavior specialists; and serve as an ambassador for the Sheppard Pratt Schools behavior philosophy and programming.

Educational Assistant Career Path

1. Join a Sheppard Pratt School as an Educational Assistant. In this role, you have the opportunity to impact one student or many students as they embark on their nonpublic school journey. You will help students become independent lifelong learners by providing consistent and compassionate care and implementing their Individual Education Programs (IEPs).
2. As you help us provide a positive, safe, and stimulating educational environment for our students to learn and grow, you may discover a passion for a specific area of expertise. We can help you grow! Our most dedicated and flexible Educational Assistants can grow in to Lead Educational Assistants. They are our model EAs and act as mentors to our new EAs.
3. If you are interested in behavior, we have resource specialist and assistant behavior specialist opportunities.
4. If you are interested in helping to prepare our young adult learners for post-secondary success, we have vocational program assistants. 
5. We also welcome our bachelors-prepared employees to grow into effective special educators. Sheppard Pratt Schools partner with Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU) to provide a pathway for out employees to earn their special education certification and/or a master's of art in leadership and teaching (LDT). 
6. If mental health, speech-language pathology, or occupational therapy are more your passion, we can help you navigate those career paths too! By being part of Sheppard Pratt, doors open for you across care settings and discipline, making it easy to spread your wings.

Mental Health Providers Career Path

1. Begin as an intern with the opportunity to work with students ranging in ages from 5-21 years old depending on the program with a range of abilities including complex mental health diagnoses, autism spectrum disorder, and other related disabilities. Provide clinical service in the form of individual and group counseling, social skills groups, crisis management and case management. Work closely with families and caretakers, outside providers, and become an integral member of a child’s treatment team.
2. Receive free CEs, clinical supervision, rich, hands-on clinical experience in a multidisciplinary therapeutic milieu, and collaborate across sites and within a complex health system
3. Move into direct clinical care after achieving licensure 
4. Collaborate with psychiatrists, BCBAs, special educators, and other related service providers such as speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists
5. Move to a lead clinician role, providing clinical supervision to others
6. Provide assistance and oversight with school compliance and clinical and IEP documentation
7. Become a subject matter expert: participate in specific subject matter work groups such as suicide prevention/assessment, planning, violence and threat assessment planning, and more
8. Advance to clinical coordinator positions, providing oversight of clinical programming within a school

Teacher Career Path

1. Join a Sheppard Pratt School as a special education teacher, either focused on special education or a specific subject matter.
2. Grow in your role and foster impact in a new way - whether as an IEP coordinator, a curriculum instruction coordinator, an assessment coordinator, or a transition specialist.
3. Interested in management? Many of our teachers have gone on to follow an administrative track, growing into the role of assistant principal or even education director.