Teacher shortages, especially in special education, have been an issue for several decades causing districts to examine leadership practices that support long-term special education teacher retention. Another concern is the disproportionate reading scores of students with disabilities compared to their general education peers. This has created a need for consistent special education teacher staffing to ensure district-wide special education teacher training in multisensory reading instruction. These issues must be addressed due to state regulations requiring the needs of students' Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) to be met by a certified special education teacher. It has been increasingly difficult to retain certified special education to meet these requirements. Since the job of a special education teacher is so unique due to the diversity of needs in their classroom, this mixed method study, which was conducted within Buffalo Public Schools, gathers from special education teachers both qualitative data (from an open-ended survey and a follow-up semi-structured interview) and quantitative data from a Likert scale focusing on leadership practices most conducive to teacher retention. This research seeks to determine the leadership practices and procedures that need to be put into place to retain special education teachers at Buffalo Public Schools to ensure students with disabilities are best supported in the classroom with consistent IEP implementation and reading interventions. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]