Annabelle Davis finished her bachelor's degree in early childhood education about 12 years ago. But after substituting in special-education classrooms, she had a change of career plans.

She decided she was meant to work with disabled students.

"I think it was the part where you can see that you really make a difference," Davis said. "The progress is slow sometimes, and it's small, but it makes a difference."

On Saturday, Davis was honored as the Utah Teacher of the Year by the Council for Exceptional Children. She spends her days in a Provo High classroom with 10 teenagers who have multiple, severe disabilities, and she said the No. 1 quality required for the job is simply the will to do the work.

"It definitely does take some patience, but probably the biggest thing is just the want to be there, the desire to be there," Davis said.

Ted Kelly, director of special education for the Provo City School District, called Davis "a guardian angel." But teachers like Davis are getting harder for districts to come by.

"We have seen over the years that our veteran teachers are retiring, and as our new teachers come in, they just don't stay in the profession very long," Kelly said. He said he usually needs to fill four or five special education positions every year, but next year he projects he'll have 10 spots to fill.

Paperwork, federal requirements and stress can make the job frustrating, Kelly said. It requires "an internal quality that I think people have that are tolerant and caring and that kind of thing -- balancing that between the education and the skills to really individualize for students' needs, along with handling a great deal of stress."

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act makes for more paperwork than teachers are expecting, Kelly said.

"You go into the profession to work with kids, and so much of your work is in meeting the demands of IDEA," Kelly said.

Special education is the area in which the state will soon be the most strapped for teachers, according to the Utah Educator Supply and Demand Study, conducted by researchers at Utah State University in November. The authors of the study urged the state to provide more support and incentives to fill the jobs.

Of 8,825 students who graduated with degrees in education from Utah colleges and universities from 2000 to 2004, only 869 majored in special education, the study showed. "The universities are at their full capacity, it seems like, in producing teachers, but it's just not enough," said Bruce Schroeder, project director of a state improvement grant that is studying the problem.

Last year, the state needed 300 new special education teachers, but only about 200 graduating students were prepared for the job, Schroeder said.

The Alternative Routes to Teacher Licensing program is helping to fill some of the gap. School districts can recruit people with bachelor's degrees in other fields and offer them a job as they begin part-time studies toward receiving their license.

"Take Provo district," Schroeder said. "They had someone with experience in social work, and she wanted to be a teacher and didn't really want to go back to school and do a traditional way, so she enrolled in an Alternative Routes program."

Kelly said the program is streaming teachers into Provo schools.

"We get some unbelievably good candidates," he said.

Another state program also is addressing the shortage. The Public Education Job Enhancement Program offers signing bonuses of $5,000 to $10,000 for special-ed teachers and scholarships of up to $20,000.

The Alpine and Nebo school districts participated in the first year, and Provo is looking into it, said Clara Walters, a specialists with the State Office of Education.

But hanging onto effective special-ed teachers also can be a challenge.

"What we're really concerned about is we're finding that nearly half the teachers leave in their first five years of teaching," Schroeder said.

Of 144 Utah special-ed teachers who left their jobs from 2000 to 2004, about half of them had been in the field four to 10 years, according to the USU study.

"Even though we are increasing the numbers of people we can train, it seems like lots of them are leaving," Schroeder said.

Davis said she gets small affirmations that she chose the right path.

"We just came off of spring break, and I was out meeting the bus. One of the students stepped off the bus and came running up with a big grin and said she was glad to be back," Davis said. "We know something of what we do makes a difference. We're not always sure what, but we know something makes a difference."

Anna Chang-Yen can be reached at 344-2549 or annac@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.