Special Education Issues

[Mike Parent]

A colleague (Joe Materia, who is also a member of our group) and I have been examining the data of the current Juniors in our Special Education program at our high school. We uncovered some disturbing things. Our special needs kids, - who are required to take the state exams like everyone else is - have not been afforded the opportunity to take part in the supplemental skills support classes provided by the English and Math departments for students who scored low on early warning tests. They are not enrolled in the classes because of a "scheduling conflict".

What we unearthed was damning; our special needs students have been doubled up in maths rather than placed in the support classes. Joe researched each of our Junior special needs student's schedules and found that these students are also doing average or sub avgerage work in thosee two math classes. Ethical dilemma to say the least.

Joe composed a memo to the Supervisors of Math and all of the Guidance counselors. We are meeting with them next week to discuss this travesty. They were not happy people, to say the least, when the memo showed up in their mailboxes. Apparently you can't divulge problems in memos - it hurts feelings. No time for feelings... Joe and I have errors to correct. Feelings be damned.

I have been in three districts as a teacher. Each of their SPED programs was nearly criminal in execution, expectations, and support. Our high school has, by far, the most well designed and meaning SPED program I ahve been exposed to. But it has its flaws (as noted above). Just last year, I discovered that our special education students were not eligible to apply to four year institutions because they lacked two years of lab sciences; rather than be placed in CP (college prep) sciences with labs, they were placed in G (general) classes that did not afford lab time. They were non-lab science credits. After voicing my concern at a curriculum meeting in May of last year, that has changed. I felt embarassed for the Science Supervisor and the Guidance department. But what was going on was in direct violation of all IDEA standards.

What have your experiences with Special Education been? Are we all providing "the least restrictive environemnt" for our most needy students? Or are we doing what is epxediant and fulfills the minimum standards of IDEA? What does a well designed Special Education program look like?

[Connie Weber]

Wow--good questions, Mike. And what an advocate you are. Kudos! We need more people like you out there, caring enough to challenge the way people's assumptions and also the thinking (or lack thereof) that lets things just keep going as they are because that's the way they've always been.
I work with a lot of kids who have special needs. The kids I work with typically have strong parent advocates, and our school is very strong in watching over students who have differences in learning styles and challenges of various sorts.
What I like seeing is these kids graduated from college with all sorts of success, largely because somewhere along the way (from parents, teachers who cared, and maybe their whole K-8 program at this school) learned to be their OWN advocates. It's amazing that once that happens, a huge number of doors open up. (Of course, in the situation you're describing, the kids were entirely left out, without any options. Good thing you corrected that.)
I'd like to see emphasis on teaching students to be their own advocates, in everything. It's something that's often not talked about directly.
Thanks for the difference you're making.
I hope more people respond the this special ed post.

[Mike]

Hi Mike.... great group. Well, i know we have a couple of things in common: our name, we live in the same state, and we are both passionate about education.

My background has been almost exclusively in Special education, as a teacher and administrator. I too have worked in a variety of situations.... both in regular school's like yours and in more restrictive environments.

A couple of things come to mind.

First, special education as you know is a huge category of very different types of classifications. The key in my head however, and the slice that i found regular schools struggle with is that special ed. is special because it is supposed to be indivdualized based on the students needs.

So when you ask: "What does a well designed Special Education program look like? "

My answer would be it really depends on the individual kids that you currently have in your school. It changes depending not on school need but on the kids need.

That is why the continuum of placement decisions needs to be looked at carefully and individually for every classified student you have. The IEP meeting done well should drive the development of your programs. What usually happens in regular school placements is that the team looks at the schools current programs and trys to fit the kid into it..... that's backwards!!!

A couple of things you may want to look at:

What is happening at those IEP meetings????? Although we special education folks may not be "content" experts ( we could disagree a bit on that :) ) we should know the special education regulations and i have found that most regular educators do not really understand it.

For instance, each special education student in your high school...beginning in the 9th grade should have by code a "transition plan". That plan.... begining early should have been guiding the course selections all along the road. If part of the transition plan was post high school education.... it should have been driving the kids program and classes not vice-versa. Again.... individual kid first.... program second.

Most regular education continues to do this.... programs available first.... fit kid in ( kinda how schools do everyone else...sorry had to say it).

Mike.... i love your passion and your concern. Remeber, least restrictive environment is suppoosed to be decided individually at least annually.

You may want to start by looking at your students current classifications. The design of your programs should flow from their needs. A general weakness that i have seen is transition planning for classsified kids.
This...done well could guide your program development.

Hope this is a bit helpful.... be well...... mike