The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act mandates transition planning to occur in conjunction with the individualized education program for secondary age students with disabilities beginning by age 16, or earlier. To fulfill this mandate, teachers must possess a depth of content and pedagogical knowledge related to the transition planning process. However, the majority of special educators do not receive coursework dedicated to transition in their undergraduate programming. Furthermore, teachers in under-resourced and underserved rural districts may have inequitable professional development opportunities to bolster their transition planning knowledge. This lack of transition-related education potentially leads to inadequate and noncompliant transition plans for students with disabilities. The current study examined differences in teachers’ knowledge based on locale: rural (n = 75), suburban (n = 48), and urban (n = 64) from one southern state. Determining whether differences are identified by locale can inform the allocation of resources to provide high-quality, evidence-aligned professional development models to improve teacher knowledge in underserved and under-resourced rural locales. In addition, identifying gaps in teacher knowledge will inform pre-service and in-service teacher preparation. We provide an avenue of needed future research to improve transition-planning processes for students with disabilities.

《残疾人教育法》要求过渡计划与针对 16 岁或更早的中等年龄残疾学生的个性化教育计划一起进行。为了完成这一任务，教师必须拥有与过渡规划过程相关的深度内容和教学知识。但是，大多数特殊教育工作者在本科课程中没有接受专门用于过渡的课程。此外，资源不足和服务不足的农村地区的教师可能有不公平的专业发展机会来增强他们的过渡规划知识。缺乏与过渡相关的教育可能会导致残疾学生的过渡计划不足且不合规。n = 75)、郊区 ( n = 48) 和城市 ( n = 64) 来自南部的一个州。确定不同地区是否存在差异可以为资源分配提供信息，以提供高质量、符合证据的专业发展模式，以提高服务不足和资源不足农村地区的教师知识。此外，确定教师知识方面的差距将为职前和在职教师准备工作提供信息。我们提供了未来所需研究的途径，以改进残疾学生的过渡规划过程。