Principal Interview 2

Decisions with Exceptional Children and/or 504

Exceptional Children

Decision 1:

 In Ms.S. first year as a principal she made a decision to change the makeup of classrooms. They were made up of students with disabilities who needed services and support of an EC teacher as well.  She observed classrooms and found that the students were in a regular standard classroom.  Students were having some difficulties in the classroom with no support from an EC teacher.  The EC teachers were in other classrooms. As a result she decided to make some changes to the master schedule.  Based on the data from the previous year’s EOG scores, she decided to make inclusion classrooms which included a general education teacher and an EC teacher.   She obtained research on this practice from Dr. Friend who is a strong advocate for co-teaching in the school environment.  Also Ms. S was a teacher in California over a course of 15 years.  Through her experience she found this type of classroom to be most effective.

When asked about the impact of this decision on students, parents, and teachers?

Students:   She stated that the students had some difficulties in the beginning adjusting to the change but later found it to be most helpful.  As a result, there was significant growth in their academics and on the EOG standardized test for language arts and math. She also stated that those students who were in resource classes did not show mark improvements.

 Parents:   Initially, they were upset and concerned with the changes.  They felt that their child would not adapt to the change very well because of their previous placement and the change in teachers.  But as the school year progressed and students were moved to their appropriate places, parents viewed this as a positive change for some students.

Teachers:  Initially were upset with this decision because they were placed in a position to adapt to having another teacher in the classroom and sharing teaching responsibilities.  Some invited the help and others were territorial.

Decision 2

This decision was based on the guidelines to have students with a disability to receive instruction from highly qualified teacher in their core subjects of reading, math, social studies, and science.  This current school year the EC teachers serve as co-teachers in classes that have students who have are eligible for EC services.  However they are amongst students who are not receiving services who may be at grade level or slightly below as well.  These students receive the benefit of a co-taught environment as well.  The weakness with this is that there is such a spectrum of students who may not get their needs met because they need more an additional instruction.  To help counteract this, a learning lab was put into place to address some academic needs for those students who need additional help other than the classroom. Along with this, the learning community of our school system  sent some additional support to define useful strategies for the general education and EC teacher,

I

504

In regards to students with a 504 plan, Ms. Stated a student was hit by a car and a decision was made to place the child on a temporary 504 until she was able to perform her duties as a student.  She was on medical leave for a period of time.  Therefore she needed additional accommodations and modifications to help her due to the number of absences due to illness.

Who Ruled?

Supreme Court Case Rules on Special Education

Morning Edition June 23, 2009

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=105797012&m=105796997

                Larry Avis reported that a high school student (TA) began having attention problems.  The student was evaluated to determine eligibility.   It was found that he did not qualify for special education services. One comment was made that if accommodations were made then it was unlikely that the student would have been in a residential facility.  Parent decided when TA was a junior;  it was best to pull the student out of the public school.  They placed him in a private setting (boarding school). The school system stated parents acted on there on that they did not feel that they should have to pay for their decision to place the child in a private setting. TA’s parents decided to sue and have the public school to pay for the tuition of their child in private setting.  They took the case to Supreme Court.  The parent won the right to sue for payment of the student’s education in Portland, Oregon for the cost of sending the student to a private school. They must go back to court to determine reimbursement.  There are concerns that schools need to keep working with parents to come up with the needs of students even if the student does not qualify. There is concern that cases like these may influence parents to want to pull their child out of the public school setting and seek the private setting at the expense of the school district.

                Should the parents have sued for educational services outside of the school system? My concerns with this lawsuit are the criteria by which the school system of Oregon based their decision to determine eligibility.  I feel that if there were no accommodations and modifications made based on the special education services then there should have been some, based on 504.  I feel that the school system should have addressed the areas of concern and come up with strategies that the parents were comfortable with and documented those things.  I can’t determine based on the report whether or not anecdotal records were gathered but there are a series of assessments a student would encounter to make the decision to not be eligible.  However the parent’s have a right to go due process if they are in disagreement with the decision and it sounds as if that may have occurred.  However, lots of time has gone by, TA continues to have issues with attention problems.  I’m not sure he did not have any other problems that may have caused him to enter in a boarding school. There are still some missing elements to the story.  To answer my question of a law suit, I feel that the parents should sue if not all of the interventions were tried for their child and to make sure that the child received the most optimal education within the public setting only if all else has failed.

Additional Reference:

1.    High court: Who pays for special education?

By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press Writer

www.katu.com/news/national/43920887.html

2.    US high court to hear Oregon special ed case by Mary Hudetzwww.katu.com/news/local/37751839.htm

21st Century- CHRIS Video

                                                                  There are many teachers who are adamant about lecturing and nothing else. I think we as educators have to remember the era.  Students are multi- task learners.  However it has to be relevant to their life and important enough to them in order for students to tap into their interest.  In the video,” 21st Century pedagogy”, it was stated that educators need to, “change the DNA”.   I agree that the DNA needs to be examined however there are certain skills necessary to have mastered before a high level of learning can take place.

           As a principal, I would like to see my school focus on the 21st century concepts through the learning experiences and maybe incorporate some type of technology relevant to their personal experiences. One of the other videos, “Education , Today and Tomorrow”, states that students obtain information from so many facets such as teacher and student instruction by which they communicate with each other.  Students can obtain information by entertainment such as through music- use of ipods. Other multimedia technology are  face book, blogs, web page , you tubes and others.  So why not take some of those devices and use it in education environment.  These videos greatly impacted my thought and ideas by which I would like to lead my school.

          When I viewed the videos, I thought about my vision and philosophy for teaching.   I believe students want to learn. However they want to know how relevant it is to their life. One of the videos, Students in the 21st Century, focus on how different the era was from the time of Shakespeare and to present time.  This is one of the things that impacted the direction by which I would want my school to be led.

            I feel that it can’t be a program that is thrown to the teachers.  I would have teachers thoroughly involved in the implementation of the program as well as the parents invested .  Teachers need to observe the program already in use and examine the data that reflects the learning of students.  We would adapt changes or delete changes that would not benefit our school.

           As they have learned the program it is my hope to observe learning with multi-media technology and students engaged. Teachers would have students engaged in the learning environment. They may be using computers in the classroom on a daily basis.  They may be chatting with each other on line about a lesson and posting their response on line. They may be breaking down basic information in math class so that students might understand the relevance of volume.  Teacher may venture to show a recording from you tube on specific concepts.    

           I would venture to have a school in which technology is not a issue of lack of funding to purchase but part of the education of becoming a 21^st Century school. However, this is an ideal school in which every child has a computer to use in each classroom.    

                                         

Additional Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdwEIi22Dv8