Our Faculty & Staff

Jennifer C. Platt, Ed.D. Executive Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Dean's Office Grant Project(s): • Paraprofessionals Acquiring Certification in Exceptional Education Office: ED 308-G Phone: 407-823-2046 Email: platt@mail.ucf.edu

Dr. Jennifer Platt is Professor of Special Education and Executive Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Education at the University of Central Florida. She attended Central Connecticut State University where she earned a B.S. degree in Elementary Education. She completed an M.S. degree in Special Education in the area of Emotional Disturbance at the University of Kansas and a doctorate in Special Education/Learning Disabilities with a minor in Reading at West Virginia University. Her primary area of research focuses on the recruitment and retention of special populations, such as paraeducators and mid-career professionals, into education. Having been both a general education and special education teacher, a second area of interest involves strategies for meeting the needs of diverse learners in P-12 classrooms. She co-authored Teaching Children and Adolescents with Special Needs in its 5th (Prentice Hall) and Teaching Adolescents with Mild Disabilities (Wadsworth).

She served as co-principal investigator of the PreK-20 Partnership Initiative to address the critical shortage of teachers in Florida and completed a Teach for Florida grant to prepare mid-career professionals for Florida's classrooms. She currently serves as co-principal investigator of a U.S. Department of Education grant to prepare paraeducators to be special education teachers (PACE-Paraeducators Acquiring Certification in Exceptional education) and directs the STEP (Supporting Teacher Education Pre-professionals) Program, which focuses on the recruitment and retention of freshmen into education and assists them to become teachers particularly in critical shortage areas. She provides oversight for the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant Program authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act. The TEACH Grant is a non-need-based grant which provides qualified individuals $4,000 per year to prepare to teach in a high need field such as special education.

Dr. Platt is President of the Florida Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the Southern Regional Representative of the Advisory Council of State Representatives, which is a part of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. She coordinates the UCF College of Education Holmes Scholars program and serves on the executive committee of the UCF/Orlando Science Center Holmes Partnership.