Our School Brooklyn Prospect Charter School Special Educational Needs (SEN) Policy Brooklyn Prospect Charter School (BPCS) is committed to supporting all students academic and personal growth, teaching the skills and habits of mind necessary for success in the global community, recruiting and training excellent teachers, and reflecting the diversity of Brooklyn s neighborhoods. We embrace racial, socioeconomic, and learner diversity. As we grow as an organization, we are committed to using our resources and personnel creatively to ensure that all students needs are met to the best of our ability. Our Special Education Needs Philosophy We believe that every learner has strengths and struggles and that, sometimes, those strengths and struggles reflect differences that require additional supports. The provision of specialized academic and social-emotional supports at our school corresponds directly with the continuum of need that exists. The students who require more supports receive them and the students who require fewer supports also get what they need. We recognize that plans for specialized supports may be permanent in some cases and not in others, and we offer a range of services to assist regardless of where our students fall. We accept students based on a lottery and hope to always approximate the district average in our population of students with disabilities. In accordance with the school s lottery process for admission, the special education programs at BPCS are completely inclusive, which means that all students learn in a general education setting and there are no selfcontained classrooms. Our programs are tailored to make post-secondary options a realistic choice for the vast majority of the special education population. Additionally we seek to offer students a place where the diversity of the student body is, itself, a source for learning. When we speak of diversity, we refer to the range of backgrounds and perspectives that exist in our student body, on our faculty and staff, and within our broader community of parents and other stakeholders. We seek to develop openminded learners. Recognizing and utilizing our diversity makes this possible. We believe that, often, modifications and accommodations that are made for one student with a learning difference can in fact be pedagogically appropriate for all students. Who We Serve Because we are a public charter school, we honor the outcomes of the annual lotteries that are held to admit new students to our program. When our lottery process is complete and families begin to enroll their students in our school, we identify incoming students with
special education needs. We conduct this process in two ways: by evaluating information that is brought to our attention by the New York State Department of Education and by conducting detailed intake interviews with our students and their families. Brooklyn Prospect serves students with special educational needs in a general education setting with the supports of either the Integrated Co-Teaching (ICT) or Special Education Teacher Support Services (SETSS) program model. At present, approximately 22% of our students have identified disabilities and Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). The majority of these students are classified as, but not limited to having, either a Specific Learning Disability, a Speech and Language Impairment, or Other Health Impairment (typically AD(H)D). Brooklyn Prospect does not have a gifted and talented program. We do offer accelerated sequences in math (starting in 7th grade) and Language A (starting in 9th grade) for students with strong skills. Additionally, classroom teachers differentiate the content, the process by which students explore and products that students create in order to provide challenge to all students. In the seventh-ninth grades, office hours are used to provide extension and enrichment sessions on a weekly basis for students who would benefit from accelerated or more challenging material. We currently have the resources to serve students with the following disability classifications: Learning disabilities (including dyslexia and dyscalculia) Speech and language impairments (including aphasia, dysphasia and articulation differences) Orthopedic impairments (physical disabilities affecting mobility) Emotional disturbances (such as chronic depression and anxiety-related concerns) Mild to moderate visual and hearing impairments Other health impairments (including ADHD, mild to moderate fine motor and executive function concerns, and chronic or acute health concerns like asthma, epilepsy, diabetes, etc.) Students who qualify for accommodations under Section 504 of the United States Rehabilitation Act. Beyond this list, Brooklyn Prospect s faculty and staff are committed to working with our student and families to find appropriate modifications, accommodations and supports. We are committed to using our resources and personnel creatively to find solutions that work for our students. We are limited in our capacity to serve students who qualify as having moderate to severe disabilities. In the rare cases where Brooklyn Prospect s supports are inadequate, we work with families to find a more appropriate placement.
Our Mandate As a public charter school, we follow local, state, and federal laws that govern the delivery of special education services in New York (state and city) and the United States. The Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) guides us to educate our students in academic settings where they require the least amount of specialized supports to succeed (least restrictive environment, or LRE). This federal law also outlines the process by which all public school students are referred, evaluated, identified, and serviced for special education. BPCS students are referred for special education services when they have not demonstrated growth with the universal supports that we have in place for all students. Examples of the these supports include an advisory program, scaffolded note-taking sheets, organizational training, academic/behavioral tracking sheets, an intensive reading program, student-specific executive function interventions, and tutorial sessions. When students are referred for special education services, we respond by collaborating with the New York Department of Education Committees on Special Education (CSE) to conduct the assessments needed to determine eligibility for specialized instruction. When the evaluation process is over, we work with our district s CSE representative to determine whether or not the student in question is eligible to receive special education services. If the student is ineligible, we work with the student s family to implement additional accommodations and supports that may help, sometimes including those provided for under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. If the student is eligible, we convene a meeting with the student s family to discuss implementing an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that will provide services and accommodations to facilitate the student s academic development. BPCS IEPs identify students strengths and areas of need, and outline progress goals that guide students learning and movement toward access and mastery of grade-level standards. Our IEPs also detail any modified promotional criteria for students who may not independently meet standard promotional criteria of grade-level standards. We conduct annual meetings to update student IEPs with developmentally-appropriate learning goals, and the CSE conducts triennial evaluations and meetings to revisit student eligibility for services. We adhere to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to provide accommodations to students with physical disabilities, and we also look to the principle of Universal Design for Learning to ensure that our logistical practices align with our vision to truly be a school for all students.
Our Team Though all teachers at BPCS play roles in supporting all students, we maintain a team of learning specialists who are dedicated to the task of coordinating and implementing instruction and supports for students with special learning needs. Learning specialists are certified, or working towards certification, in teaching students with disabilities in grades 5-9 or grades 7-12. They have, or are pursuing, master s degrees in the field of special education, and will strive to meet any and all international requirements in these areas. Our high school learning specialists have or are pursuing dual certifications in the subject areas in which they teach. Our learning specialists are divided between two programs: Integrated Co-Teaching (ICT) and Special Education Teacher Support Services (SETSS). ICT learning specialists also function as subject-area experts across grade levels in English Language Arts (ELA), Humanities, Math, and Science. They share planning, teaching, and evaluation responsibilities with their subject-area counterparts. Our SETSS team provides both pushin and pullout support to students, primarily in ELA and Math. BPCS also benefits from the services of an on-site speech language therapist and an on-site counselor. Other related services are provided off-site in conjunction with the CSE. Services to Students As a school, we have developed a Response to Intervention (RtI) model to support all students. The RtI model outlines interventions for all students in our school depending on the levels of services that they need to thrive academically and socially. Students who need a fairly typical range of supports receive them in a general education setting, while students who need more individualized supports receive them in ICT classrooms or in pullout sessions with learning specialists, related service providers, the Assistant Principal for School Culture, the Deans of Students, or other appropriate school personnel. Students in ICT or SETSS receive the majority of their instruction in a general education setting. ICT students are further supported by learning specialists in each of their core subject classes. Instruction and assessment in these classes may be differentiated or modified depending on student needs. SETSS students are further supported by learning specialists in their ELA/Math classes, and by daily pullout to bolster learning. BPCS provides many accommodations and modifications to supports its students with special needs, including but not limited to: Extended time Counseling services Speech services Modification of materials/information in the classroom
One-to-one or small group instruction Visual support of written materials Audio support of written materials Multi-formatted directions Assistive technology Preferential seating Behavior/Academic tracking plans As an organization, we strive continually to ensure that our students with special needs are receiving all of the accommodations and modifications listed in their learning plans. The student support services team works to ensure that subject-area teachers are aware of which students require additional accommodations or modifications. The student support services team members meet weekly with subject-area teachers so that they may successfully implement differentiated instruction to support their learners. Student Assessments To diagnose gaps in learning and to assess students progress in mastering specified academic goals, we administer the following assessments: New York State standardized tests Teachers College running record developmental reading assessment Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Reading Assessment Regents Examinations (grades 9-12) Wilson series of assessment tools that gauge decoding/fluency/spelling skills in developing readers (WIST, WADE, etc.) Transitional and vocational surveys and assessments Subject-area benchmark and interim examinations School based testing and teacher observation Achievement Network interim testing Our staff members are qualified to administer all of the assessments listed above. When students are referred for special education eligibility evaluations, we work with our CSE representative to administer the appropriate assessments that include, but are not limited to: The battery of assessments needed to conduct a psycho-educational assessment that complies with federal and local regulations Assessments needed to determine whether a speech and language impairment exists Various psychiatric assessments to whether a student has an emotional disturbance
Our CSE provides the appropriate related service providers to administer the listed assessments in the event that there are no on-site staff members qualified to do so. We partner with our CSE to communicate the results of these evaluations to our parents, and to work with our families to implement recommendations for specialized instruction and related services. Student Records To promote accountability and to maintain updated and clear information for all of our students with disabilities, we will continue to build a record-keeping system that helps us organize and communicate our students needs. This system will house documents that include students IEPs, completed psycho-educational and neuropsychological evaluations, formal observation/session notes, and any other documentation regarding the provision of special education services to students. Our SEN records are confidential. Learning specialists and related service providers have access to these student files. Other members of our staff and faculty (subject-area teachers, administrators, etc.) wishing to view the records may work with learning specialists to review files. We will provide families and government agencies with copies of these records upon written request. When students move to different educational institutions, we will ensure that their special education records move with them. Maintaining Our Special Education Needs Policy Our SEN policy will be coordinated by our team of learning specialists, in conjunction with subject-area teachers and school administrators, to ensure that the vision and objectives detailed in this document are aligned with our mission and that of the International Baccalaureate program. Our SEN policy will be monitored primarily by our learning specialists, with feedback from stakeholders at multiple points throughout the year. We will maintain a virtual version of this document that may be accessed by all members of the school community including teachers, administrators, students, and parents. The document will also be available in hard copy for any members of the community who want it.