EMPLOYMENT OF EDUCATORS IN PRESCHOOL MAINSTREAMING - A SURVEY OF GENERAL EARLY EDUCATORS

This report describe a mail survey designed (a) to identify the extent to which various types of educators (paraprofessionals, early childho od educators, elementary school educators, and special educators) were employed in early education programs, and (b) to describe patterns in that employment Respondents represented a variety of programs (Head S tart public school prekindergarten, public school kindergarten, and co mmunity preschool/child care) and where selected randomly from the nin e U.S. Bureau of the Census regions. The results indicate that (a) hig her percentages of programs employed full-time rather than part-time p araprofessional and professional staff; (b) higher percentages of Head Start programs employed paraprofessionals, particularly Child-Develop ment-Associate-degree staff, than did other program types, and the low est percentage of employment of paraprofessionals occurred in public s chool kindergarten programs; (c) more mainstreamed programs employed p araprofessionals than did nonmainstreamed programs, but the difference s were slight; (d) higher percentages of programs employed bachelor's- degree teachers, (e) nearly equal percentages of programs employed ele mentary teachers as employed early childhood teachers, and fewer progr ams employed special education teachers; and (f) about three fourths o f the mainstreamed programs did not employ special education teachers.