It is important for teachers to understand the special
education process. To write this blog and
get many varied opinions, I interviewed the special education teacher and two
other teachers at my school about the special education process and how they go
about their part of it.
The special education teacher
Q- How is a student identified for special education?
A- Usually their general
education teacher will have concerns.
Q- That makes sense. What does the teacher do with those
concerns?
A- The general education
teacher will gather information and paperwork to support their claim that the
student needs help. They will take the collected data to the team for testing.
Q- Who takes responsibility for the child’s progress before
he or she is determined to need help?
A- The general
education teacher is responsible for the child’s progress until an IEP is put
into place, unless the student has a severe and immediate need.
Q- When the IEP is in place, which teacher is responsible
for the child’s learning?
A- Both the special
education and regular education teachers share the responsibility for progress
afterwards, unless the child is placed in a very restrictive environment.
Q- What is the administration directive for special
education?
A- Administration’s
directive is to place all students in general education, if possible. The
school has extended resources for students with severe needs that cannot be
housed entirely within the general education classrooms; however, even those
students will visit the general education classrooms from time to time to get interactions
with gen ed peers.
Q- What provisions are made for students identified for
special education?
A- Anything they need.
It might be a quieter environment, a smaller class size, occupational therapy,
physical therapy, speech, or any of a number of other things.
Q- What is the level of parent involvement in the referral
process and special education?
A- Parents are
involved every step of the way. There are discussions between those doing the testing
and parents, and the special education teachers and parents communicate after
the child is diagnosed. Also, IEP re-evaluations happen every 3 years; possibly
sooner, if the child shows a particular need for it. Parents must approve
everything along the way, or the team and parent must re-evaluate the plan to
come up with one that works.
General Education
teacher – 1st grade
Q- How do you identify a student for
special education?
A- Since my students are essentially
kindergarteners when they enter my class, I watch for two basic things; basics
of learning and understanding, and social behaviors. If the student seems to
struggle with learning, understanding, or social behaviors over a period of
time, or if the students problems are so severe that they stand out, I discuss
them with parents and (the special education teacher) to see how we can work
together to help the student.
Q- What are some of the signs of a
struggling student?
A- For social problems, the child
doesn’t interact with other children, or does, but the interactions are very
unusual in nature. For academic, the
student struggles to complete the work, even after some time studying the same
concept, and does not respond to my attempts to differentiate my instruction.
Q- Then there are alternate methods
of instruction tried out before referring the student for special education? What
would those be?
A- There sure are. I try to work with
the students using all the different methods of learning before I go on to refer
that child for special education. For example, I might use phonemic awareness
questions and go noodle (gonoodle.com) to see if a kinesthetic learner
understands how to recognize letter combinations. I also try to rule out vision
and hearing problems. Plus, I’ve usually had several conversations with Mom and
Dad by the time I’m ready to take “the special education step”.
General Education
teacher – 6th grade
Q- How do you identify a student for
special education?
A- I look at the
quality of their work over time. If I’m not seeing improvement, and the student
appears to be trying, I ask myself if they might need to be referred into the
program. I will speak with the student and impress upon them the importance of their
studies and ask them to make a conscious effort to improve. Then I watch to see
if the student continues to struggle.
Q- That leads right into my next
question. What are the signs of a struggling student?
A- A struggling
student is working to keep up, but having enough difficulty that they are
falling farther and farther behind. They might show deficits in a certain area,
like spelling, where they might show indications of dyslexia.
Q- Are there alternate methods of
instruction tried out before referring the student for special education? If
yes, what are they?
A- There are several
alternate methods a teacher can try with a student before referring them to
special education, from informally reducing the number of problems required to
using technology to supplement their learning. If those things don’t work, then
I speak to the parent and begin work on the MIT form (referral paperwork).
What did you get from that and how can we use it to improve the referral process?
I understood that, if a student is struggling in any away, we
should work to help them. At first, it should be dealt with in class. It might
be using Mobymax.com, as I do in my class, to find and fill educational gaps or
practice a concept, which is similar to what New York’s School of One does (Social
Butterfly LA, 2010). Alternately, as some of my colleagues suggested, it might
be differentiating instruction for different learning types, like using
pictures or audio books to aid students with understanding.
Next, we should tap parents and other educators to see if
they might have answers for us. If that fails, refer them to special education
services. After all, in Finland, 90% of students are referred to special
education within their lifetime (Edutopia, 2012).
We could really improve the referral process if we didn't place such emphasis on special education as a separate and negative entity. In Finland, special education is just a part of education. The gen ed teacher speaks with the special education teacher, and both of them decide whether a student needs help (Edutopia, 2012). There is no negative connotation and no one makes a big deal out of the extra assistance. If we didn't have to work so hard to get kids into special education, and it was only looked at as "extra help", we could streamline the process because parents would be accepting of the aid and because of that there would be less need for extra meetings and paperwork. Also, if special education were just considered "extra help", any student could get what they needed, then step back into general education once they received the academic boost.
We could really improve the referral process if we didn't place such emphasis on special education as a separate and negative entity. In Finland, special education is just a part of education. The gen ed teacher speaks with the special education teacher, and both of them decide whether a student needs help (Edutopia, 2012). There is no negative connotation and no one makes a big deal out of the extra assistance. If we didn't have to work so hard to get kids into special education, and it was only looked at as "extra help", we could streamline the process because parents would be accepting of the aid and because of that there would be less need for extra meetings and paperwork. Also, if special education were just considered "extra help", any student could get what they needed, then step back into general education once they received the academic boost.
We, as teachers, must do our best to give students whatever
they need. The more we differentiate and try to mix up our teaching styles, the
more our students will grow and blossom into adults with the skills they need
to survive in today’s world.
References
Edutopia,
(Jan 25, 2012). Finland’s Formula for School Success video. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsdFi8zMrYI
Social
Butterfly LA, (Nov 30, 2010). School of One video. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSTrI6nj5xU
Artwork
Books by Nipunbayas. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Stack_of_books.jpg/800px-Stack_of_books.jpg
Crayons by Kurt Baty. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crayola_1st_No48_a_few_crayons.jpg
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