Comparing the SPED processes of Different Educators to Tomorrow's Learning World

I think most of the educators I've interviewed lately and seen on YouTube and Ted Talks speaking about SPED and referrals and alternative approaches all have the same idea:  as educators, we need to deeply evaluate our students in-classroom (and home as parents) before automatically labeling them as having learning disabilities.  We need to alter our strategies and accomodations and keep trying those new approaches with the child.  Inevitably, the parent needs to be an active and involved member of the team, and support the teacher as he or she evaluates the child's process.
For future, I believe the schools have positive reinforcements ahead with technology and more involved "helicopter parents" (let's hope this doesn't turn a positive into a negative).  Being an older parent myself, I'm very tuned in to my son and all of his academic achievements, social and teacher interactions, etc..
As for the child, nurturing your child's motivation and optimism over subjects he or she likes in school can only help their learning and academic prowess.  As parents, we need to study their actually study of homework and assignments to see where they are in their progress and check in regularly with the teacher.  I know that when I become a teacher, I plan to communicate with parents as much as possible...as much as they'll allow me.

All students begin their educational careers with needs. For many students, it is the need for guidance by a professional educator who can expand their knowledge.  While each student brings a different level of knowledge and skills to his or her first class, the individual’s needs are typically met by a highly-qualified educator. However, there are children who have unique needs that are atypical for children of their age and may not be within the expertise of the general education classroom teacher. It is during this time that the teacher (or parent, administrator, or counselor) recognizes a consistent need or problem exhibited by the student. The recognition of a discrepancy in the student’s academic, social/emotional, behavioral, and/or physical ability and his or her age may signal the need for additional academic or behavioral supports.During this phase, it's important to call a meeting with the parents or guardians.  The teacher should provide examples and all involved should evaluate the need.

I believe the IEP teams for SPED students are integral and important to the future of Special Education in general.  After watching the Finnish and School of One videos, and seeing how often they met involving just one student, I was astounded at the time and passion they put into the learning and improvement of each child.  This is what we need to keep pushing for in our future in education.  Overall, I hope to not lose the child's motivation and optimism in general.  Nurturing these qualities in students and children of our own is important for them to enjoy their educational process.  Nurturing these qualities in some children will require extra care, but the time and energy adults expend in this way will help strengthen students'/children's motivation over time.

Pre-Referral Process for SPED

From what I've researched, the purpose of the pre-referral process is to ensure your child tries reasonable modifications before she’s referred for special education assessment. Sometimes, a change in the classroom can turn her performance around and make it unnecessary to consider a SPED referral.  The pre-referral team goes by different names in different places. In some schools, it’s called the Student Study Team (SST) while in others, it’s the Student Intervention Team, Child Study Team, Teacher Support Team, and Student Success Team. Regardless of its name, the purpose of the team is to:

• work together to identify your child's teams
• put strategies into action, and
• evaluate their impact so your child can succeed in the general education classroom.

Team Members:

There are no rules for membership on a pre-referral team. Generally, the team includes general education teachers, who are most familiar with the general education classroom and curriculum, and a counselor or administrator. The team may also include a school psychologist, special education teachers, and related service personnel, such as speech and language pathologists. Each school selects team members depending on what works best for them.

As a parent, you’re a key member of this team. Although law doesn’t require a pre-referral meeting and parent participation isn’t guaranteed, most schools include parents in this process. You’re the one most familiar with your child’s behavior needs.

Process:

Although the steps may vary by school, here’s what often occurs:

Your child is referred to the pre-referral team because there’s a concern about her academic skills or behavior. Although anyone who knows your child can refer her, usually it’s you or the classroom teacher who makes the referral. You’ll be asked to identify specific area(s) of concern, such as not turning in assignments, earning poor grades in a subject area, not paying attention, having trouble understanding homework assignments.

There is a team meeting which goes over many of these steps:

• Reviewing your child’s strengths, interests, and talents.
• Discuss reasons for referral, overall performance level, and behavior in the classroom.
• List interventions previously tried and their rate of success. (School interventions may include modifications, accommodations and behavior plans.)
• Select interventions to try.
• Develop a plan for carrying them out.
• Agree on a time to meet again to discuss progress.
• Put the intervention into action and evaluate it over time. The timeline can vary greatly — from a couple of weeks to a school quarter or trimester, depending on the type of program set up.
• The team meets again to discuss the success of the intervention. As a result of the intervention, did your child’s performance improve, remain the same, or decrease?

If the interventions are effective and your child seems to be back on track, schools generally continue with the plan and hold future meetings as needed. This suggests your child doesn’t need a special education evaluation at this time. Most likely, he will benefit from instruction in the general education classroom with continuing interventions.

Outcomes:

If the interventions don’t bring about desired change, the team may decide to:

• try another intervention or change the current one
• refer your child for a special education evaluation to find out if he’s eligible for special education services as a student with a disability.

Interview about Special Ed Referrals with a 4th Grade Public School Teacher

Val Schwarz, a no-nonsense fourth grade teacher at Mary Munford Elementary School in Richmond, Virgina, is very passionate about her teaching and her students.  She keeps the students on a schedule, yet she is fun and gets them outside for dodge ball and kick ball as much as she possibly can.  I sat down to interview her a day after school was out of session, so her commitment to the field is also admirable as you'll see.

When asked how she identified a student for special education, she answered that she looks for a significant gap with a subject or skill.  She says sometimes the difficulty will be related to handwriting and organizational skills. The gap can also present itself in a way that the student seems to know more in class than what he/she can show on an assessment.

As for what the signs of a struggling student are, the signs could be with organization and knowing how to get started with a task, a low reading level, spelling difficulties, organization on a page, difficulty grasping concepts despite presenting the information in many different ways.  Ms. Schwarz says another sign is trouble remembering some basic general knowledge: place value from lower grades, months of the year, number sense, addition and subtraction by 1, 2, 5 or 10.

She said additional signs could be related to social skills, immaturity, and focusing difficulties.

As for trying out alternative methods before referring, Ms. Schwarz says she always tries alternate strategies and accommodations before, during and after the referral process begins.  It takes a while to complete the process, so the teacher needs to try new approaches to  help the child.

Also, she says, if you haven't tried accommodations and alternative approaches, the child study team will likely have you begin there, before even looking at evaluating the child.

Additionally, students typically need to be earning D's and F's in order to have a chance of getting services.

(Note:  After I had already interviewed my 4th grade teacher, the special ed administrator, Kelli Parson, came back to me and gave me a couple of questions to ask the classroom teacher:  (1) Tell me about the RTI procedures or what type of remediation must be documented before you can make a special education referral, and (2) tell me about modifications that you make for children in your class that are identified as having special needs).

We've talked often in our Virtual Classroom and Learning Forum about modifying the classroom to fit the students' needs, so I understood her want to ask this question.  Personally, I've seen Ms. Schwarz make some modifications in her class for her SPED students (such as moving desks closer to her or out of the middle of the craziness of the 22-student classroom), playing classical musical in the class which I know one of her SPED students loves and is known to calm his nerves, etc...

I enjoyed this interview with the Mary Munford teacher as I usually work with them on a PTA Board basis, so some of them being excited and willing to help me through my education process is overwhelmingly special.

Thanks for the opportunity for the interview.

-Amanda Patterson

Interview from the Perspective of a Special Education Administrator

I recently had an interview with an Early Childhood Behavior Intervention Consultant, continuing her studies of Special Education Supervision at Arkansas State University named Kelli Parson.  She was (is) phenomenal and definitely knows her job, which is why I asked for her help.

She informed that in her experience with early childhood special education, referrals come primarily as a result of a failed developmental or speech language screening.  A large percentage or referrals come from pediatricians or parents who have concerns as well. In public school, it is usually more the result of poor classroom performance that lead the students to her door.

As for the responsibilities before and after referral, in public school, she said the classroom teacher is responsible before referral and the special ed teacher takes more responsibility afterwards (once special education process begins), by giving the classroom teacher some direction and a plan to follow.

School administrator should be there in the school and classroom ensuring that the plans are followed and special education guidelines are followed, but time and other responsibilities sometimes take them away from this task.

Public Law 94-142, now classified as IDEA (which I didn't know when I interviewed her and she referred to the law but asked her and was immediately informed), gives all students with special needs some provisions or resources.  However, the needs of each student should be taken into account when making educational plans and programming for students with special needs.  (I am assuming this is where IEPs come in the picture.)

Ideally, she said that the parent(s) should be very involved from the beginning.  Federal law mandates that parents are notified in writing informing them of an upcoming conference.  A parent must give written consent before any evaluation is conducted.  Parents should be given a copy of their rights under IDEA.  Ms. Parson stressed the best case scenario is when the parent is an active and involved member of the students' educational team.

This is when I asked her my additional interview question about what was done about parents that are in denial?  when parents don't want to accept that their children need additional help?  Ms. Parson said, in fact, that sometimes this happened (about 40% of the time), but she found that most parents wanted to get to the root of their child's problem and felt "relief" that there was a diagnosis and plan in place so their child could move forward with their academics.  She has helped to foster this process for years so she has many ways to deal with both situations.  We didn't have time to get into those scenarios, but I'd like to further discuss that with her.

Overall, I felt she answered to the best of her ability and gave me the sufficient (and more) time I needed.

Her job is demanding, but she loves every minute of it.

-Amanda Patterson