As a lifelong study of teaching careers including post-retirement, this paper clarified the areas of 218 principals, who have retired from elementary and junior high schools in the Y Education Office in X Prefecture during the end of the 2000-2023 school year, on how they have participated in the society, made public contributions and achieved self-fulfillment.

Through this exploratory study, we were able to obtain many objective facts by following the subsequent careers of retired principals more extensively and over a longer period of more than 20 years. The findings revealed that as many as 70% of the retirees were pursuing self-fulfillment through various careers, and especially contributing to society in community-based public positions. This suggests that it is important to envision a lifelong teaching career that includes not only a career that ends before and after entering the teaching profession, but also a career of post-retirement. It also shows the potential of post-retirement teachers as a valuable local human resource who can shoulder the educational roles in the society as a whole.

Special education, especially the educational support for the special needs students who are enrolled in regular classroom is becoming more important to the society. Then, this study aims to explore an organized and collaborative approach to enhance the educational support.

The research revealed that homeroom teachers who are in charge of the special education think that they need to strengthen the support system within the school. And the support system of the special education are shifting from the traditional style, which the homeroom teacher solely support the student, to teachers work more collaboratively and cooperate to support the student together.

However, there is the problem that special education which is provided by the regular class teacher, depend on the experience and skills of each teacher. And this structural problem is a factor that prevents the establishment of a school-wide collaborative system, this study aims to consider practical solutions to achieve more effective support and build a school-wide collaborative system.