Online tutoring jobs for former and current Texas special education teachers

If you teach in a Texas school now: a side job during the school year

We hire special education tutors year-round. Our greatest need is weekdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern: that is 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Central in most of Texas, and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mountain in El Paso and Hudspeth counties. Evening and weekend tutors are welcome too: tell us when you can teach. Available hours depend on student demand and schedule fit. You don’t need to cover every grade, subject or time.

If you can fit tutoring around your teaching, we’d like to hear from you.

For former teachers: a remote job after you’ve left the classroom

If you’ve left classroom teaching but still want to teach students with IEPs, 504 plans and learning differences, this job is live, one-on-one online tutoring, one student at a time. SpecialEdResource works with students from pre-K through 12th grade, plus adult learners. It’s part-time W-2 employment, with paid training.

We ask for at least five hours a week of availability, and tutors work 5 to 25 hours a week. Available hours depend on student demand and schedule fit.

You need special education certification and a teaching license, both from any US state, with the license current, or renewed before you start. You also need to live in one of the 15 states where SpecialEdResource can currently employ tutors, and Texas is one of them. Teachers anywhere in the state can apply.

My Texas teaching certificate has expired. Can I still apply?

Yes, if you renew it before you start. Our application’s license question says:

Answer Yes if your license is current, or if it has expired or is inactive and you’ll renew it before you start. We check licenses before the first interview.

In Texas, teaching licenses are called certificates. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) says on its renewal page: “Since September 1, 1999, the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) has issued the standard certificate, which is subject to renewal every five years.” and “To renew your standard certificate, you must apply and pay online through the Educator Certification Online System (ECOS).” It adds: “You do not need to be employed by a school district to complete CPE requirements or renew your Texas educator certificate.” Renewal takes continuing professional education (CPE). SBEC’s renewal rule says: “Classroom teacher certificate holders shall complete 150 clock-hours.” (Some other certificate classes, such as educational diagnostician, need 200, and someone with several classes completes the higher number.) It also says: “All educators must receive CPE training regarding educating students with disabilities.” “This training must include information particular to educating students with dyslexia.”

If yours has expired, TEA says: “If a standard certificate is not renewed by its expiration date, it will become inactive.” and “Educators who are not currently employed by a Texas school district do not need a hardship exemption because there is no deadline for renewing an inactive certificate.” To renew, you complete the CPE hours, apply online and pay the renewal fee, plus a late renewal fee. SBEC’s rule reactivates a certificate only “subject to verification that the educator is in compliance with §232.7 of this title” (§232.7 lists the checks for every renewal, such as fingerprints on file). TEA adds: “Educators are not required to retake certification examinations solely because a certificate has expired.” Lifetime certificates (provisional and professional certificates issued before September 1, 1999) have rules of their own. The steps, and those rules, are in our Texas teaching certificate guide.

Left a Texas public school job? Your TRS account

If you leave a job covered by the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS), you can leave your contributions with TRS or, if you meet its conditions, ask for a refund. TRS’s Benefits Handbook says that members who have at least “five years of membership service credit are eligible to retire and receive a lifetime monthly annuity when they meet the applicable age requirement.” If you leave your money in, Texas law (Government Code §822.003) says that if a person “has five or more years of service credit, failure to qualify for additional service credit does not terminate membership” in TRS “unless all of the person's contributions are withdrawn.”

A refund has conditions. Texas law says: “A person is not entitled to withdraw contributions if the person is employed, has applied for employment, or has received a promise of employment with an employer covered by the retirement system.” The handbook says: “By refunding your account and ending your membership, you lose your service credit and forfeit any retirement benefits (including retirement health care benefits).” It adds that “individuals who terminate membership but later return to TRS membership are subject to new normal-age retirement eligibility criteria, including minimum age 62 for unreduced service retirement benefits, and new more costly early-age retirement reductions.”

What happens with less than five years of service credit, the refund form, refund taxes and buying refunded service back are covered in the questions at the end of our TRS employment after retirement guide. Questions about your own account go to TRS (800-223-8778).

A special education job outside the classroom

• One student at a time. Each student has sessions with you an average of 2 to 3 times a week, live and online; a session usually lasts 30 minutes, 45 minutes or 1 hour.
• Choosing your students. You decide which students you want to work with.
• Materials. SpecialEdResource provides subscribed online resources and SpecialEdResource-created resources, and you choose and adapt materials for each student, because every child differs.
• Prep and notes. You're paid for tutoring time. Prep and notes are not paid separately; the session rate covers them. SpecialEdResource provides AI summary tools that make note-writing mostly copy and paste.
• Through the year. Most students keep meeting through summer and school breaks.

How hiring and sessions work

How is this different from teaching for a virtual school?

This is tutoring, not classroom teaching: you work with one student at a time, in live online sessions that usually last 30 minutes, 45 minutes or 1 hour, as a part-time W-2 employee of SpecialEdResource. Training is paid, and licenses and special education certification from any US state are welcome.

What the job pays

Starting pay: $23/hour, W-2. All tutors can earn a 10% performance bonus in any pay period when they tutor at least 10 hours and turn in session notes on time. How the pay, bonus and hours work