A common scenario for any public school parent is that there are years in which the quality of teaching is not great. Most parents have to work with their kids to make it through these years in the hopes that the next year’s teacher will be better. That’s just how it is. If you are the parent of a fourth grade student without disabilities, then you have little recourse if you think the school has not done its job. You can complain to the school administration and to the school board, but most often that is as far as it goes.
If your fourth grader happens to be in special education because of a disability, then the story is quite different. Federal law allows a parent of a child with a disability to sue a school district if that parent feels that the school has not served their child. What makes these children different? The law is mostly about access to the same curriculum that other children receive. It is a civil rights law. And certainly there have been many cases where students with disabilities have been excluded from the mainstream. The law has been logically and appropriately enacted.
Where trouble starts is in the cost to the school of legal action. Since a parent can sue any time that parent believes that the school has fallen down on the job, law suits in special education are fairly common. I have had four law suits filed this year against my district, and three of them asked us to pay for private residential placements for students whose parents could not contain their behavior at home. Now, I know a number of parents who have lost control of their children for many reasons, and they have either placed the child in a residential center at their own expense, if they could afford it, or found local ways to deal with the problem. Both options have been successful for these parents, or not, in equal measures. But if the child is in special education, the parent can ask the schools to pay for the placement.
The cost of the residential placements range from $50,000 to $150,000 per year. There are few guidelines on what these type of institutions charge. This year, we have had parents place their children and then come back and ask us to pay for it. The tragedy is, and this is what keeps me up at night, is that I know these families do not know what to do with their children. I know they are looking for solutions, and a variety of people, from doctors to educational advocates, recommend these residential placements. I am also obligated to defend the district from spending money it does not have, as for each placement we lose one teacher. The state does not give us extra money for these cases.
So why is this a problem? Shouldn’t we support these families who do not have the skill or support to care for their children? When you meet these families, there is no doubt that they need assistance. There is no doubt that some of these residential placements are very good. There is also no doubt that neither the state nor the federal government give school districts any extra money for these placements.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The Long Road to Special Ed Administration Begins with Poop
I walked into the room ready to rock. I was the new teacher, fresh out of school, a Master’s degree in hand, about to take this dreadful room of rocking, spinning, flapping teenagers to a new level. It was my first day at the Sonoma Developmental Center, an institution for people with developmental disabilities. I was hired with a promise of resources for community training (e.g.- walking, shopping, vans, “primary reinforcers” (m & m’s) and a classroom of my own. None of that was “ready” yet, and as it would turn out, it would never be. So today, I was visiting one of the other classrooms, and the teacher who showed me around smelled of booze and cigarettes and gave sage advice, like keep your head down and don’t be noticed.
“By who? The kids?” I asked.
“By the staff,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
He was smiling in a mean sort of way, not meeting my eyes, distinctly not liking what I represented, which was either potential change in his comfortable routine, or an unwelcome break in his drinking schedule. He pushed me ahead of him into the room, where about twelve late-teen kids with autism were rocking back and forth. Two assistants were sitting with two of the kids, not doing anything but handing them plastic toys to fiddle with.
“Whatever you do,” said the teacher, “Don’t turn away from them.”
“What do you mean?” I said, turning away from them to look at him. At that moment I was hit in the back of the head by something soft and sticky. Instinctively, I reached up to see what it was as the assistants and the teacher broke into guffaws. My fingers came away with a brown substance with, interestingly, bits of what looked like corn. I was instantly disgusted and wretched as I realized that I had just been hit with a poop ball. In my hair. I could not think of anything more vile, and I ducked out of the classroom thinking of the teacher’s advice: keep your head down. He helped me to find the bathroom, laughing.
“I told you not to turn away!” he said, helpfully.
I wondered who did that. I had looked immediately at the group of kids and saw no one looking at me, no one giving any sign of having fired the offending missile.
“What the hell was that?” I asked him. “Who did that, and how?”
“I’ll show you in a minute,” he said. “Clean that stuff off your hair, though.”
I emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, feeling completely soiled and wanting nothing more than to go home and take a three-hour shower. I had hours to go on this first day, and everything was upside down, and I had no choice but to return to the classroom and see what was up there.
When I did, the teacher pointed to a kid standing and rocking by the window. He was short, not much more than five feet, and had his focus somewhere out the window.
“That’s Karl,” said the teacher. “He doesn’t like new people. Watch him this time, out of the corner of your eye.” He moved away from me then, and I did as he said, turning to one side but keeping my eye on him. Karl put his hand into the back of his pants for about twenty seconds. Then, amazingly quickly, he whipped his hand out, turned his body towards me, and fired what was in his hand. Since I saw it coming, I ducked, and the poop ball splattered against the door, where it stuck and stank like, well, like a piece of dung. He would have hit me again.
“He’s a good shot. Never misses,” said the teacher. The assistants giggled.
“How long until he trusts me?” I asked.
“Depends. You’ve got to spend some time with him.”
“Well, I think I’ve seen enough of your class for now. Thanks,” I said. All I wanted was to go home.
There is perhaps no worse feeling then when your head has been covered, even partially, with human feces, although other types of feces may be pretty bad too. I quickly found out that the Center had a shower, complete with feces-eliminating shampoo (at least I hope that’s what the pink stuff in the bottle was), where I spent approximately 47 minutes washing and rewashing my hair. Later, after my hair dried, my scalp was so dry that tiny Bedouins had taken up residence there…or at least it felt like it. Something tiny had…maybe it was lice. You never know what may have been in that li’l ball of flung dung.
The next day I was told that the teacher of that class was sick and I would have to take his class. I found out later that this guy was an alcoholic and was often “sick”. If this was going to be the situation, I better learn how to protect myself from my Ass-assin. Fortunately, I had a beanie in my car, one of those knit caps worn by skiers, longshoremen, and gangsters. Unfortunately, it was my wife’s, pink with some poorly-rendered fuzzy creatures romping in grass. But protection was protection, and I needed to be safe.
When I got to the class, the assistants greeted me warily, eyed my hat, and went on chatting, ignoring both the students and me. As a substitute, one learns that the teacher leaves a folder with plans for you, or at least a class schedule. I searched in vain for one on the desk, all the time keeping one eye on Karl. I asked the assistants where the plans were, and they just laughed, so I asked them what they typically did. They hung out in this room, of course, for two hours, then went back to the residence hall. Class over. What did they do for two hours?
“Well, we give them stuff from the trays over there,” one said. “They work on that until they’re done, then we give them other stuff.”
There were about six trays on some shelves at the end of the room. Six trays, twenty students. I quickly figured, thanks to expert training in my credentialing program, that there were not enough materials to go around. Rather than put the obvious in front of these two women, I got a tray and brought it over to Karl. The women stopped talking and watched me.
“Is this OK to do with him? Does he also fire at close range?” I asked.
They laughed. “He’s OK,” one of them said. “ He likes that tray.”
So I sat down in front of Karl, while he rocked, standing by the window, and watched me peripherally. I set up the trays, a sorting task involving bolts, nuts, and washers. I set up the three parts in order, and then assembled one and held it out to Karl.
“Come here, Karl. Let’s do some work,” I said. He watched me and stopped rocking. After about ten seconds, he came over and sat down. He picked up the bolt, took off the nut and washer, and replaced them in the correct trays. He then picked up the bolt again, and reattached the nut and washer. He then dropped it into the fourth tray, an empty one. I had brought a box of raisins with me, so I gave him a small handful after he completed this simple task. He took them and popped them into his mouth, not chewing them, just swallowing. All I wanted was for Karl to like me, though I figured the only way I’d know it was to turn my back and not get splattered with a whizzing turd.
I worked with Karl for about thirty minutes, giving him raisins for completing the bolt assembly. I figured that I better work with somebody else, as most of the kids just sat and rocked the whole time, so I moved to another student. I kept my eye on Karl though, until at one point I got sidetracked when a student threw a tray onto the floor and screamed. Naturally, I turned towards this student, and almost immediately felt a smack on the back of my pink hat, knowing instantly that I had been defiled again. Turning slowly towards Karl, I gingerly took off my hat and saw that the ball had stuck to it whole, as it was full of hair and thus very cohesive, which meant that it did not splatter. I asked the laughing assistants if there was any on my shirt, and they did me the small favor of coming over and assessing me for contamination, and announced me clean. I put my hat into a bag and finished the class with Karl squarely in front of me the whole time.
One of the things you learn in these kind of institutions is that a lot of the residents have feces on their hands, under their nails, and smeared on their bodies. I think it’s a reaction to being in such an unhealthy place. Karl was only unusual in that he could produce these balls at will, and fling them with alarming accuracy at any chosen target. It turned out that he was a legend at the Center, with stories told that made mine fairy tales. The best was when the Center Executive Director came to see the classroom, having decided to come down from the brick, ivy-covered administration building to inspect the troops. He walked into the class and no one dared tell him not to watch Karl, and as he opened his mouth to speak to the assembled teachers and administrators, a poop ball hit him square in the teeth. Now, I can think of about 200 reasons why that’s about the worst possible scenario, and from then on, until I finally made peace with Karl about a month later, I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on the prize.
The Sonoma Developmental Center is a large, archaic institution that boasts of both a long and glorious and sordid past. It has stood not far from Sonoma, California, for over 100 years, serving first any child or adult who didn’t fit into society and morphing into a center for children and adults with developmental disabilities. At one point, it was the largest center in the world for the practice of eugenics, taking the form of forced sterilizations of hundreds of people. It has retained an institutional air, as befits a large, bucolic town, which is what Eldridge is, removed from the mainstream. It is, on first inspection, quiet and quaint, with small groups of people walking slowly around the area or sitting and waving at the cars that do pass by. It is a pleasant and beautiful place, with stately buildings, mature trees and hills behind it covered in redwoods and dotted with trails and lakes. It’s a wonderful place to take a stroll and forget what your hair may harbor after a long day in the classroom. As a new teacher, fresh out of a University with a long history of cutting edge curriculum, imbued with moral purpose and a mission to improve the world for people with disabilities, I did not know what to make of Eldridge, or the Developmental Center, or Karl. I did learn to keep my head down, though, and found that outside of this place, no one believes that a person like that could be so accurate with so disgusting a projectile.
“By who? The kids?” I asked.
“By the staff,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
He was smiling in a mean sort of way, not meeting my eyes, distinctly not liking what I represented, which was either potential change in his comfortable routine, or an unwelcome break in his drinking schedule. He pushed me ahead of him into the room, where about twelve late-teen kids with autism were rocking back and forth. Two assistants were sitting with two of the kids, not doing anything but handing them plastic toys to fiddle with.
“Whatever you do,” said the teacher, “Don’t turn away from them.”
“What do you mean?” I said, turning away from them to look at him. At that moment I was hit in the back of the head by something soft and sticky. Instinctively, I reached up to see what it was as the assistants and the teacher broke into guffaws. My fingers came away with a brown substance with, interestingly, bits of what looked like corn. I was instantly disgusted and wretched as I realized that I had just been hit with a poop ball. In my hair. I could not think of anything more vile, and I ducked out of the classroom thinking of the teacher’s advice: keep your head down. He helped me to find the bathroom, laughing.
“I told you not to turn away!” he said, helpfully.
I wondered who did that. I had looked immediately at the group of kids and saw no one looking at me, no one giving any sign of having fired the offending missile.
“What the hell was that?” I asked him. “Who did that, and how?”
“I’ll show you in a minute,” he said. “Clean that stuff off your hair, though.”
I emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, feeling completely soiled and wanting nothing more than to go home and take a three-hour shower. I had hours to go on this first day, and everything was upside down, and I had no choice but to return to the classroom and see what was up there.
When I did, the teacher pointed to a kid standing and rocking by the window. He was short, not much more than five feet, and had his focus somewhere out the window.
“That’s Karl,” said the teacher. “He doesn’t like new people. Watch him this time, out of the corner of your eye.” He moved away from me then, and I did as he said, turning to one side but keeping my eye on him. Karl put his hand into the back of his pants for about twenty seconds. Then, amazingly quickly, he whipped his hand out, turned his body towards me, and fired what was in his hand. Since I saw it coming, I ducked, and the poop ball splattered against the door, where it stuck and stank like, well, like a piece of dung. He would have hit me again.
“He’s a good shot. Never misses,” said the teacher. The assistants giggled.
“How long until he trusts me?” I asked.
“Depends. You’ve got to spend some time with him.”
“Well, I think I’ve seen enough of your class for now. Thanks,” I said. All I wanted was to go home.
There is perhaps no worse feeling then when your head has been covered, even partially, with human feces, although other types of feces may be pretty bad too. I quickly found out that the Center had a shower, complete with feces-eliminating shampoo (at least I hope that’s what the pink stuff in the bottle was), where I spent approximately 47 minutes washing and rewashing my hair. Later, after my hair dried, my scalp was so dry that tiny Bedouins had taken up residence there…or at least it felt like it. Something tiny had…maybe it was lice. You never know what may have been in that li’l ball of flung dung.
The next day I was told that the teacher of that class was sick and I would have to take his class. I found out later that this guy was an alcoholic and was often “sick”. If this was going to be the situation, I better learn how to protect myself from my Ass-assin. Fortunately, I had a beanie in my car, one of those knit caps worn by skiers, longshoremen, and gangsters. Unfortunately, it was my wife’s, pink with some poorly-rendered fuzzy creatures romping in grass. But protection was protection, and I needed to be safe.
When I got to the class, the assistants greeted me warily, eyed my hat, and went on chatting, ignoring both the students and me. As a substitute, one learns that the teacher leaves a folder with plans for you, or at least a class schedule. I searched in vain for one on the desk, all the time keeping one eye on Karl. I asked the assistants where the plans were, and they just laughed, so I asked them what they typically did. They hung out in this room, of course, for two hours, then went back to the residence hall. Class over. What did they do for two hours?
“Well, we give them stuff from the trays over there,” one said. “They work on that until they’re done, then we give them other stuff.”
There were about six trays on some shelves at the end of the room. Six trays, twenty students. I quickly figured, thanks to expert training in my credentialing program, that there were not enough materials to go around. Rather than put the obvious in front of these two women, I got a tray and brought it over to Karl. The women stopped talking and watched me.
“Is this OK to do with him? Does he also fire at close range?” I asked.
They laughed. “He’s OK,” one of them said. “ He likes that tray.”
So I sat down in front of Karl, while he rocked, standing by the window, and watched me peripherally. I set up the trays, a sorting task involving bolts, nuts, and washers. I set up the three parts in order, and then assembled one and held it out to Karl.
“Come here, Karl. Let’s do some work,” I said. He watched me and stopped rocking. After about ten seconds, he came over and sat down. He picked up the bolt, took off the nut and washer, and replaced them in the correct trays. He then picked up the bolt again, and reattached the nut and washer. He then dropped it into the fourth tray, an empty one. I had brought a box of raisins with me, so I gave him a small handful after he completed this simple task. He took them and popped them into his mouth, not chewing them, just swallowing. All I wanted was for Karl to like me, though I figured the only way I’d know it was to turn my back and not get splattered with a whizzing turd.
I worked with Karl for about thirty minutes, giving him raisins for completing the bolt assembly. I figured that I better work with somebody else, as most of the kids just sat and rocked the whole time, so I moved to another student. I kept my eye on Karl though, until at one point I got sidetracked when a student threw a tray onto the floor and screamed. Naturally, I turned towards this student, and almost immediately felt a smack on the back of my pink hat, knowing instantly that I had been defiled again. Turning slowly towards Karl, I gingerly took off my hat and saw that the ball had stuck to it whole, as it was full of hair and thus very cohesive, which meant that it did not splatter. I asked the laughing assistants if there was any on my shirt, and they did me the small favor of coming over and assessing me for contamination, and announced me clean. I put my hat into a bag and finished the class with Karl squarely in front of me the whole time.
One of the things you learn in these kind of institutions is that a lot of the residents have feces on their hands, under their nails, and smeared on their bodies. I think it’s a reaction to being in such an unhealthy place. Karl was only unusual in that he could produce these balls at will, and fling them with alarming accuracy at any chosen target. It turned out that he was a legend at the Center, with stories told that made mine fairy tales. The best was when the Center Executive Director came to see the classroom, having decided to come down from the brick, ivy-covered administration building to inspect the troops. He walked into the class and no one dared tell him not to watch Karl, and as he opened his mouth to speak to the assembled teachers and administrators, a poop ball hit him square in the teeth. Now, I can think of about 200 reasons why that’s about the worst possible scenario, and from then on, until I finally made peace with Karl about a month later, I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on the prize.
The Sonoma Developmental Center is a large, archaic institution that boasts of both a long and glorious and sordid past. It has stood not far from Sonoma, California, for over 100 years, serving first any child or adult who didn’t fit into society and morphing into a center for children and adults with developmental disabilities. At one point, it was the largest center in the world for the practice of eugenics, taking the form of forced sterilizations of hundreds of people. It has retained an institutional air, as befits a large, bucolic town, which is what Eldridge is, removed from the mainstream. It is, on first inspection, quiet and quaint, with small groups of people walking slowly around the area or sitting and waving at the cars that do pass by. It is a pleasant and beautiful place, with stately buildings, mature trees and hills behind it covered in redwoods and dotted with trails and lakes. It’s a wonderful place to take a stroll and forget what your hair may harbor after a long day in the classroom. As a new teacher, fresh out of a University with a long history of cutting edge curriculum, imbued with moral purpose and a mission to improve the world for people with disabilities, I did not know what to make of Eldridge, or the Developmental Center, or Karl. I did learn to keep my head down, though, and found that outside of this place, no one believes that a person like that could be so accurate with so disgusting a projectile.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Then there is the crazy parent...and I mean crazy.
This week I have finally become the one to challenge a parent with mental illness. He has been diagnosed by an MFT who works for us and has dealt with him. We have been trying to get his son into a classroom and provide services for her for months, but in each IEP he brings a huge amount of confusing information forward and is not sure what he feels she wants. Any questions for clarity bring a defensive attack from him at which point he simply gets up and leaves the room. He then follows this with emails that are accusing the district of all kinds of perverse activities. Apparently, we have been involved in everything from group sex to beatings in the classroom when she was here. We also have been, allegedly, lying, cheating and stealing (OK, so that's not a unique accusation) and sit around discussing just how best to make her life (and of course, his) miserable.
So, setting aside the difficulty of dealing with a parent who is not tethered to the pole, let's talk about the common accusation that we, as special educators, do nothing more then sit around developing new ways to be mean to kids and dishonest to their families. In fact, let me check...YES! My Masters degree states right on it that I have earned the right to be dishonest and to be mean to kids. I remember that day, the one where I earned my degree. There stood our august professor, dressed in her cap and gown, warning us of the dangers of honesty and integrity.
"Go out there and hurt kids," she said, "For it will be much more fun. This work is about cruelty and punishment, and you must uphold the great tradition of lying to families and restricting access to resources. Good luck."
So where does this come from? Part of it is the structure of special education, where we are set against families when there is disagreement over the distribution of resources. Part of it is that we have not served certain students well, either due to an incomplete understanding of their needs or a resistance to accept the reality of what they require. Of course, there are some educators who seem to really dislike kids. That I don't get.
Now I need to figure out how to work with this parent who is not only mentally ill but wants us to provide some bizarre program that no one understands. Well, I think I'll just take President Bush's advice; when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. Buy for now!
So, setting aside the difficulty of dealing with a parent who is not tethered to the pole, let's talk about the common accusation that we, as special educators, do nothing more then sit around developing new ways to be mean to kids and dishonest to their families. In fact, let me check...YES! My Masters degree states right on it that I have earned the right to be dishonest and to be mean to kids. I remember that day, the one where I earned my degree. There stood our august professor, dressed in her cap and gown, warning us of the dangers of honesty and integrity.
"Go out there and hurt kids," she said, "For it will be much more fun. This work is about cruelty and punishment, and you must uphold the great tradition of lying to families and restricting access to resources. Good luck."
So where does this come from? Part of it is the structure of special education, where we are set against families when there is disagreement over the distribution of resources. Part of it is that we have not served certain students well, either due to an incomplete understanding of their needs or a resistance to accept the reality of what they require. Of course, there are some educators who seem to really dislike kids. That I don't get.
Now I need to figure out how to work with this parent who is not only mentally ill but wants us to provide some bizarre program that no one understands. Well, I think I'll just take President Bush's advice; when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. Buy for now!
Monday, November 26, 2007
How to Handle That Workload
Why did I take this job? It's impossible! Being the Director of All Things Special in a medium-size district is a 24/7 job. I know my desk is an iceberg, nay an ice field, and they forgot to issue me an icebreaker boat to navigate it. About every three weeks I get approximately 3 hours to do what is on my task list for that day. Other than that, the constant stream of phone calls, people who need a decision, and emails constantly interrupts me. Oh, and the superintendent wants another meeting. And the HR Director needs to discuss staffing. And the same parent that called yesterday is now calling with her attorney's name since I did not respond within twelve minutes. (my favorite message: "I've called you three times since yesterday morning and you have not called me back. That is SO inconsiderate.")
I started out sure that I could make everyone happy, that I could keep the parents, staff and my supe satisfied and aware that I was on the job. Well, that didn't last long, but most folks are still satisfied, at least that's how I read it when the number of complaints drops. Now my skin is thickening and my understanding of the work has improved to the point of not reading my composite of laws book just before sleep (generally that's at night, though not always). I've been at this job for 1 1/2 years.
So how do I balance work, family, and other interests, which include some kind of exercise to keep me from going all blubbery and reading anything that is not related to education? I realized before I actually started the job, after talking to several friends who are Directors, that the job could easily eat me alive. So I declared to myself, in the presence of my dog Myron and my wife, that I would leave my job every day at 5:30 and not bring work home or work weekends. After 1 1/2 years, I am still able to do that, and find myself working at home about 2 evenings a month. I have gone to the office on Saturday exactly three times. The result is that I am present for my family (and Myron) and have at least some time to do what else I want to.
This has been very difficult to maintain. The pressure to join more committees, to respond at once to all calls and emails, is huge. But I don't. Every day I prioritize and answer what I deem to be imminent. Then, at 5:30, I go home!
I started out sure that I could make everyone happy, that I could keep the parents, staff and my supe satisfied and aware that I was on the job. Well, that didn't last long, but most folks are still satisfied, at least that's how I read it when the number of complaints drops. Now my skin is thickening and my understanding of the work has improved to the point of not reading my composite of laws book just before sleep (generally that's at night, though not always). I've been at this job for 1 1/2 years.
So how do I balance work, family, and other interests, which include some kind of exercise to keep me from going all blubbery and reading anything that is not related to education? I realized before I actually started the job, after talking to several friends who are Directors, that the job could easily eat me alive. So I declared to myself, in the presence of my dog Myron and my wife, that I would leave my job every day at 5:30 and not bring work home or work weekends. After 1 1/2 years, I am still able to do that, and find myself working at home about 2 evenings a month. I have gone to the office on Saturday exactly three times. The result is that I am present for my family (and Myron) and have at least some time to do what else I want to.
This has been very difficult to maintain. The pressure to join more committees, to respond at once to all calls and emails, is huge. But I don't. Every day I prioritize and answer what I deem to be imminent. Then, at 5:30, I go home!
Monday, November 19, 2007
RtI: Response to Intervention or Really Tough to Implement?
By now, unless you are living under a rock, or in Alaska (sorry Alaska) you have heard of RtI. The "t" is lower case as one doesn't capitalize "to". The acronym is short for, officially, Response to Intervention, but since so many people are writing about it there are new versions of it: Response to Instruction, Rejection of Instruction, Really Terrific Instruction, and my own, Really Tough to Implement. At the risk of repeating what you and your whole extended family have heard before, here's my two cents. This is a Really Terrific Idea! It is a paradigm shift, not just a new way of distributing resources. Here's how it works.
You can think of RtI in terms of a three tiered pyramid, with the bottom tier being what kind of instruction occurs across the school academically and behaviorally. This first tier is the basket where all the RtI eggs go, in that this process is predicated on general ed being the way to resolve lots of special ed issues and any other related special program concern. In this tier resides top quality, evidence-based instruction and data collection. This tier contains leveled reading and math, 6-8 week data review by a trained staff in grade level teams, social skills instruction, explicit instruction of school and classroom behavioral expectations, and a problem solving strategy that allows for constant adjustment of the delivery of services.
Above this first tier is the next egg basket, designed for those kids who do not respond well to the general ed instructional regime. In this tier, knows as the targeted tier to many, small groups are created and focused on more intensive versions of the core curriculum, be that reading or social skills.
On the top of the pyramid is the third tier, knows as the intensive tier to many. In this tier, we have 1:1 tutoring, intensive interventions, and special education. We also have individual behavior support plans.
The theory is that if we set up the school this way, we will have many fewer kids in special education and thus free up the resources to work with those kids who really do need it. This process is researched and developed to serve kids with reading issues primarily. The common wisdom these days is that over 50% of the kids in special ed are there due to poor reading instruction, not due to some neurological issues. The math is simple; teach them better and your rolls will halve! Nice way to improve the system!
So where is the downfall? Well, it's bloody hard to implement. The issues are manifold: you have to get a building's staff to buy in to doing things differently, as it's about changing what the adults do. You need to have good enough leadership at the site to allow for creative problem solving and flexibility in moving kids around. You need a good relationship with the union so this is built collaboratively. You need to work with the resources you have as no new funds are coming to assist this process.
But the potential payoff is fantastic!
Many of us have griped for years about the need for general ed to take more responsibility for special ed kids. Under RtI, there are no more "our" kids or "your" kids. They are all our kids. The discussions are about what to do within general ed instead of how do we get this kid to special ed. It's about time.
You can think of RtI in terms of a three tiered pyramid, with the bottom tier being what kind of instruction occurs across the school academically and behaviorally. This first tier is the basket where all the RtI eggs go, in that this process is predicated on general ed being the way to resolve lots of special ed issues and any other related special program concern. In this tier resides top quality, evidence-based instruction and data collection. This tier contains leveled reading and math, 6-8 week data review by a trained staff in grade level teams, social skills instruction, explicit instruction of school and classroom behavioral expectations, and a problem solving strategy that allows for constant adjustment of the delivery of services.
Above this first tier is the next egg basket, designed for those kids who do not respond well to the general ed instructional regime. In this tier, knows as the targeted tier to many, small groups are created and focused on more intensive versions of the core curriculum, be that reading or social skills.
On the top of the pyramid is the third tier, knows as the intensive tier to many. In this tier, we have 1:1 tutoring, intensive interventions, and special education. We also have individual behavior support plans.
The theory is that if we set up the school this way, we will have many fewer kids in special education and thus free up the resources to work with those kids who really do need it. This process is researched and developed to serve kids with reading issues primarily. The common wisdom these days is that over 50% of the kids in special ed are there due to poor reading instruction, not due to some neurological issues. The math is simple; teach them better and your rolls will halve! Nice way to improve the system!
So where is the downfall? Well, it's bloody hard to implement. The issues are manifold: you have to get a building's staff to buy in to doing things differently, as it's about changing what the adults do. You need to have good enough leadership at the site to allow for creative problem solving and flexibility in moving kids around. You need a good relationship with the union so this is built collaboratively. You need to work with the resources you have as no new funds are coming to assist this process.
But the potential payoff is fantastic!
Many of us have griped for years about the need for general ed to take more responsibility for special ed kids. Under RtI, there are no more "our" kids or "your" kids. They are all our kids. The discussions are about what to do within general ed instead of how do we get this kid to special ed. It's about time.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Why do they hate me?
I am sitting across the table from a group of parents who are ready to do what they seemingly relish in these monthly “collaborative, advisory” meetings. Start to grill me, as the school district special education director, about why nothing is going right in my district.
The federal special education law provides for participation of parents of students with special needs in advising the district. There is a formal body, called the Community Advisory Committee, or CAC, that meets monthly to hear reports from the special education administrators and to give feedback on policy and programs. More often than not, these sessions are bitch sessions concerning how we have failed each parent’s kid, and what is remarkable to me is how this becomes how we don’t serve any child well.
On this day the usual parents have brought in several more who don’t usually attend. Their mission today, it seems, is to tell me how my budding program for kids with autism is an abject failure. One father begins by saying that special education is so impossible to do that all the good teachers leave and all we are left with are people who don’t really care about kids and put all meaningful curriculum and instruction on the back burner. He is ignoring the presence of four current or former special educators around the table who I know are exemplary in how they work for students’ benefit. Then a mother chimes in to say that the school, when it was testing time, moved all of the special education students out of their classroom so other kids could be tested and simply put them on the playground. She claimed that the teacher asked her child what he wanted to do during an activity. “He can’t choose, he needs to be told,” she said. This parent then asserted that this is how it always is and always has been; the teachers don’t know what they are doing and so they ask the kids.
The absurdity of this galls me. I know this family’s last teacher who not only used top level curriculum but understood both autism and the needs of parents of these kids. Nevertheless, these parents complained constantly because on some measure they chose, their boy did not do well.
And then other parents chimed in, saying things like “When is the district going to do it’s part…we are!” Or “no one is paying attention to the teachers. You let them do nothing and don’t supervise them.” Or “There is no training offered for staff, still” It is all I can do to not get up and scream. This is my second year as Director of Special Education. In the first year I started a task force to determine how to set up a program for kids with autism. We had these same parents on the task force along with teachers, administrators, speech therapists, and psychologists. We made a plan, and we are slowly implementing it. Nothing like this has been done in this district for kids with autism. I am shocked at the fact that the biggest barrier to moving this program along is these parents constant criticism. It’s as if they don’t want us to succeed. They seem hell-bent on portraying us to all who will listen as cold-hearted bumblers who only care about our paychecks.
This past year, I have set up four trainings for staff on autism, the first training in the district for years. I have sent staff to many more trainings in other areas to get wisdom on autism. I have spent a huge amount of time with the staff of the school to get them up to speed. I have lobbied hard for money for staffing and for materials, a difficult thing to do when the district’s budget is so tight. The most angry parent at this meeting had a terrible teacher last year and complained constantly about him. We couldn’t tell her of course about personnel matters, but we worked hard on his case all year, ultimately getting him to resign, as it is almost impossible to fire a tenured teacher. This was a great victory for us, but this parent can’t understand why, just as she can’t acknowledge that “no training” is absolutely flatly wrong, as is the level of supervision we give our staff.
What these parents are right about is how difficult it is to get quality staff. It is rarer these days to find good special education teachers in California because the job is hard and the pay low. Most new teachers quit within three years. Their biggest complaints? Number one is the paperwork and handling the meetings, number two is dealing with the parents.
The federal government established the Education for Handicapped Children Act in 1975 with a promise of funding 40% of the states’ cost of special education programs. Congress has never authorized more than 17%, and currently it is around 13%. It costs a district in California up to $275 per student in the district over and above the money the federal government provides to offer these services, and this money comes out of a district’s general fund. So then you get a division within a district’s management over “encroachment”. “If your program didn’t cost so much money we could do that innovative program,” is a common refrain. In some districts, the word has gotten out that they can’t have a music program due to special ed encroachment, or they can’t have art classes, or they can’t serve Lobster on Thursdays.
My god people! It’s the cost of doing business! It’s the cost of serving these kids as the law forces us and best practice often dictates.
The federal special education law provides for participation of parents of students with special needs in advising the district. There is a formal body, called the Community Advisory Committee, or CAC, that meets monthly to hear reports from the special education administrators and to give feedback on policy and programs. More often than not, these sessions are bitch sessions concerning how we have failed each parent’s kid, and what is remarkable to me is how this becomes how we don’t serve any child well.
On this day the usual parents have brought in several more who don’t usually attend. Their mission today, it seems, is to tell me how my budding program for kids with autism is an abject failure. One father begins by saying that special education is so impossible to do that all the good teachers leave and all we are left with are people who don’t really care about kids and put all meaningful curriculum and instruction on the back burner. He is ignoring the presence of four current or former special educators around the table who I know are exemplary in how they work for students’ benefit. Then a mother chimes in to say that the school, when it was testing time, moved all of the special education students out of their classroom so other kids could be tested and simply put them on the playground. She claimed that the teacher asked her child what he wanted to do during an activity. “He can’t choose, he needs to be told,” she said. This parent then asserted that this is how it always is and always has been; the teachers don’t know what they are doing and so they ask the kids.
The absurdity of this galls me. I know this family’s last teacher who not only used top level curriculum but understood both autism and the needs of parents of these kids. Nevertheless, these parents complained constantly because on some measure they chose, their boy did not do well.
And then other parents chimed in, saying things like “When is the district going to do it’s part…we are!” Or “no one is paying attention to the teachers. You let them do nothing and don’t supervise them.” Or “There is no training offered for staff, still” It is all I can do to not get up and scream. This is my second year as Director of Special Education. In the first year I started a task force to determine how to set up a program for kids with autism. We had these same parents on the task force along with teachers, administrators, speech therapists, and psychologists. We made a plan, and we are slowly implementing it. Nothing like this has been done in this district for kids with autism. I am shocked at the fact that the biggest barrier to moving this program along is these parents constant criticism. It’s as if they don’t want us to succeed. They seem hell-bent on portraying us to all who will listen as cold-hearted bumblers who only care about our paychecks.
This past year, I have set up four trainings for staff on autism, the first training in the district for years. I have sent staff to many more trainings in other areas to get wisdom on autism. I have spent a huge amount of time with the staff of the school to get them up to speed. I have lobbied hard for money for staffing and for materials, a difficult thing to do when the district’s budget is so tight. The most angry parent at this meeting had a terrible teacher last year and complained constantly about him. We couldn’t tell her of course about personnel matters, but we worked hard on his case all year, ultimately getting him to resign, as it is almost impossible to fire a tenured teacher. This was a great victory for us, but this parent can’t understand why, just as she can’t acknowledge that “no training” is absolutely flatly wrong, as is the level of supervision we give our staff.
What these parents are right about is how difficult it is to get quality staff. It is rarer these days to find good special education teachers in California because the job is hard and the pay low. Most new teachers quit within three years. Their biggest complaints? Number one is the paperwork and handling the meetings, number two is dealing with the parents.
The federal government established the Education for Handicapped Children Act in 1975 with a promise of funding 40% of the states’ cost of special education programs. Congress has never authorized more than 17%, and currently it is around 13%. It costs a district in California up to $275 per student in the district over and above the money the federal government provides to offer these services, and this money comes out of a district’s general fund. So then you get a division within a district’s management over “encroachment”. “If your program didn’t cost so much money we could do that innovative program,” is a common refrain. In some districts, the word has gotten out that they can’t have a music program due to special ed encroachment, or they can’t have art classes, or they can’t serve Lobster on Thursdays.
My god people! It’s the cost of doing business! It’s the cost of serving these kids as the law forces us and best practice often dictates.
It's all about me!
Welcome to the special edification blog. This is a place where you can hear me rant about special education law and practice, staff and families, and working conditions. Despite the fact that this is one of the most difficult professions in America, I still like it, most of the time. I mean, we're not in it for the money, are we? But doesn't the money look good? Damn, I could have been a banker!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)