Response to questions from session on June 13, 2013

Transcription

1 Dr. Gregory Little Special Education and the General Education Teacher June 13-14, 2013 Thank you for a wonderful two days. I thoroughly enjoyed your enthusiasm, questions, and willingness to challenge your beliefs about this important topic. Remember, our challenge, is to take the dis out of the term disability and see the individual. Also remember it is also about birthday parties and always keep in mind: Where would you want your child to be educated? Response to questions from session on June 13, In class we did activities to help us empathize with learners with disabilities. Obviously this was intended for us as adult learners. But to what extent was that also modeling how we might develop empathy in our students? (assuming we do them as general discussion of empathy and differences, not doing something that only focuses on disabilities some students are known to have and embarrass them) This activity was done to provide a real experience for ARC students as to the frustrations and anxieties that many students with learning disabilities (any others) often feel during classroom situations. I don t recommend doing these activities in your class with your students. I would hope the district provides opportunities in their curriculum to address learning differences as part of any overall plan for all students. Unfortunately, it has been my experience that this is not done in any planned, sequential manner. 2. Would like to get more involved with Special Ed Students. Would appreciate any ideas or opportunities. I notice CREC has an Advance ARC on special Ed. after 3yrs of teaching experience. What are the education and experience requirements for Special Ed. I would think a Masters for starters. I don t have any current information on advanced programs (CREC ARC) or college university programs. It would be best to contact these programs directly, since certification programs and requirements are changing. 3. I suppose a student with peanuts allergy is under 504. There was a news some time ago about parents protest against their school's peanuts free

2 policy because their children cannot bring snacks or birthday treat containing peanuts. Since 504 is civil right law, can parents against it? And if teacher overlooks the food labeling and cause health issue, how serious it will be? Students with a peanut allergy may qualify under Section 504. Parents of general education can always object to school districts actions. However, state and federal regulations will override district s policies or parent complaints. If the teacher overlooks the requirements of the Section 504 plan, the teacher could face disciplinary action up to, and including, suspension and termination depending on the situation. 4. We were asked to print a tremendous amount of paper, none of which I found so far I actually needed to have been printed out. Having them with me on my laptop was sufficient so far. I have reduced the need for copying in terms of the Special Education sessions. I will ask the students about their need to have hard copies vs. the information on their laptops. Thanks for the input! 5. Thank you for keeping the program moving along and waiting until the end to take questions. So much of what I read in the book - Exceptional Lives - became clearer today. I appreciate Greg's style of staying on topic and parking questions that will be covered later. We had a lot of information to cover and I am always weary of too many questions as they tend to derail me -perhaps it's my learning style but I find excessive questions/insights (while helpful in moderation) distracting. I hope as a teacher I am able to learn his technique of politely deferring without discouraging! I added these comments since, as Core presenters or instructors in the ARC program, we have a delicate balance to encourage questions from students, yet be sure we cover the content of our lessons. As teachers, you will be faced with a similar dilemma with your students. As a reminder to ARC students, be respectful to your classmates and monitor how often you are asking questions and utilize the index cards or other non-class time opportunities if you have additional questions

3 Response to Questions from session on June 14, Budgets are finite; does this limit the number of Special Education students or cap their support services cost? 2. How does oral dictation satisfy the test of one's writing skills when writing skills include formatting, choosing when to separate paragraphs, transitions, ect? 3. When it comes to the extra time accommodation: I agree that it's only fair given their difficulties, but the question I still have is what to do with the rest of the class while those who need it get their extra time. It would be illegal for a district to cap services for students receiving Special Education services. Districts are always encouraged to find more cost effective methods to reduce costs in their districts budgets without comprising the students legal right to FAPE (remember that term!) If the student s disability requires oral testing, then the teacher would be required to implement that accommodation. Students could still be instructed on formatting, separating paragraphs, etc. and could still be assessed on these skills discretely and then applied when they have writing assignments. In other words, student s still need to learn writing skills, but we have to be careful when we assess these skills that we are not accommodating their learning needs. They could also use the computer to assist them with their writing assignment as well. In terms of extra time, often students would come back during their study period, after school, or perhaps go to the resource room and complete the exam. It would not be a good practice for the teacher to have the entire class wait while the student completes the exam in class. 2. What student learning activities might you recommend to develop understanding and empathy in a general education class that will have students with disabilities? A lot can be accomplished in setting classroom expectations up front. But if you were running an intervention to deal with problems that arose... Would want a broad array of activities and student reflections, not simply do one activity that highlighted the learning disabilities of one student in class. Suggestions for where to find these and/or how to select them? See my response from the session on June 13, Didn't get a chance to ask this. When we see a student, who may be relatively new to the school, and the student is obviously at risk, is there anything we

4 can do inside of the 6 month 'waiting period'? Can we get an informal assessment going, so we don't lose the student to outside pressures? In this case, you could immediately refer the student to the Child Study Team (or the district s committee for assisting students in general education prior to a referral) to help provide support for both you and the student. The six month waiting period is not a legal timeframe for what constitutes a long period of time. It is just a recommended time period. An emergency referral PPT can always be requested and an expedited evaluation can occur depending on the seriousness of the case. 4. Toward the end of the day during questions, you talked about telling a student that you would contact his/her parents and get them involved if they didn't take it serious and get their work done. How do you respond as a teacher to the student's response of "go ahead, my parents don't care." Great question! I would simply say that I believe all parents do care about their child s success in school and I look forward to meeting your parents to help you in my class. 5. Printed many handouts at an expense and found few of them were needed in class, much less paper versions. They're great handouts and wish we'd referred to them more in class. The agenda was helpful in that it cued us which handouts and presentations (since they were not used in sequential order). Did we not use all the handouts because they're not as strongly recommended to us as resources, we simply ran out of time, etc.? We did use Handouts B, D, and G, and I referred to Handout A and C often during the presentation. We did not use Handout E (Resources which I referred to in my presentation) and F (practice at a PPT, which I chose not to use due to time constraints. 6. I thought that a possible activity we might do in small groups would be to fill out an IEP for an imaginary student, once we know what the roles of the various people who sit on the PPT are. This would be a very difficult activity for general education teachers. Given the feedback so far, I feel concentrating more time on accommodations and modifications would be a better use of time and more beneficial to ARC students. 7. I hope there will be more interactive elements to this presentation in future. An awful lot of sitting!

5 I will certainly try to get students moving more in the future and interact with the material. Thanks for the comment. 8. In today's differentiated instruction exercise, there are four students each has specific needs. One is Jeff, marked as LD/SPED. My question is: Using learning disability as example, if we say a student with learning disability (like Jeff), can I assume that the student has IEP? The term "learning disability" is not a general term; instead it is a specific type of disability. We only say a student has disability after he or she has been evaluated and under IEP, right? In the broad sense, yes, using the term " learning disability" it is assumed the student has an IEP. But remember, the student with a learning disability might also just need accommodations and not specially designed instruction. In this case the student could qualify as having a physical or mental impairment" (learning disability) and receive a Section 504 plan. We could still refer to the student as one with a learning disability, but the actual eligibility for a Section 504 plan would technically be a physical or mental impairment. This is a distinction with the 504 Plan since impairments under this statue would cover more than just the thirteen disability categories under IDEA. 9. There were still questions after I read the Journals on Section 504 and IDEA. To review: Students who have been diagnosed with an ADHD, can be identified under Other Health Impaired and be provided with an IEP if they meet the three requirements: 1) Have a disability 2) adversely affects educational performance and 3) requires specialized instruction. School based teams can diagnose disabilities. If they do not have the expertise in certain areas, they can contract with other professionals ( medical doctors, mental health professionals, etc.) to assist them. Eligibility for a Section 504 Plan still requires an evaluation by the school team, often using the same school staff from the PPT ( school psychologist, nurse, etc.). 10. There are two sites that I want you to review. The first is the boy who has Autism(David) where he describes his disability ( 5 minutes). This is a very interesting/informative presentation. The second is from an attorney describing Section 504 (10 minutes) and some differences from IDEA. For those who had to leave early, please view this video! For others, this is a very good review. This is a dry presentation, but contains a useful review of this law!

6 David : Section 504: Best wishes in your ARC summer program!!