Since I arrived at my school, I have overseen Special Education. It is my favourite portfolio, albeit the most time-consuming and challenging. It is one of the few aspects of my new role that allows me to reconcile no longer being in a classroom on a regular basis. Plainly put, in this capacity I can help kids who need it the most without anyone running interference.
One of the new protocols that I implemented from day one is that I attend all of the transition meetings with the Department Head of Special Education of the grade 8 students with exceptionalities planning to attend my school in grade 9. I developed a checklist for our feeder schools of the information we would be seeking so that the elementary teams would be prepared with the requisite information. When you look at the list, it is somewhat long - ish. We don't even get OSRs in a decent amount of time and when it comes to these students, we need as much information about them as early on as possible so that we are ready to provide support.
Each year that I have been attending, our school team has been working very hard with our feeder schools to reduce the amount of program modifications for students who intend to work towards diplomas in high school and to help shift the focus from helping students to achieve a frankly bogus sense of achievement, to a mindset that places emphasis on skills and coping mechanisms. Watering the curriculum down is not the answer, especially for those students with a learning disability. These are students with average to above average intelligence and they need to be taught how to leverage their strengths. All but one of our schools is on board and with each passing year, grade 8s are being accommodated in all subject areas and encouraged to self-advocate, use assistive technologies and access very specific strategies that will help mitigate their needs. School X continues to modify programs because they don't want kids to feel bad about themselves. I get it. They don't get that this feeling worsens when high school credits can't be earned, even with accommodations in place. They don't get that these students are less likely to graduate on time because they don't meet basic prerequisites (i.e. skills and content knowledge) for high school. Gaps are created where they didn't previously exist. Our system personnel claim that both panels are on the same page when it comes to when it is appropriate to modify, and there are definitely cases where it's necessary. We as a system are not speaking the same language because we lack a sense of K-12 pathways planning. Real planning only seems to happen when kids come to high school. I needs to start much earlier than that.
Argh...
One of the new protocols that I implemented from day one is that I attend all of the transition meetings with the Department Head of Special Education of the grade 8 students with exceptionalities planning to attend my school in grade 9. I developed a checklist for our feeder schools of the information we would be seeking so that the elementary teams would be prepared with the requisite information. When you look at the list, it is somewhat long - ish. We don't even get OSRs in a decent amount of time and when it comes to these students, we need as much information about them as early on as possible so that we are ready to provide support.
Each year that I have been attending, our school team has been working very hard with our feeder schools to reduce the amount of program modifications for students who intend to work towards diplomas in high school and to help shift the focus from helping students to achieve a frankly bogus sense of achievement, to a mindset that places emphasis on skills and coping mechanisms. Watering the curriculum down is not the answer, especially for those students with a learning disability. These are students with average to above average intelligence and they need to be taught how to leverage their strengths. All but one of our schools is on board and with each passing year, grade 8s are being accommodated in all subject areas and encouraged to self-advocate, use assistive technologies and access very specific strategies that will help mitigate their needs. School X continues to modify programs because they don't want kids to feel bad about themselves. I get it. They don't get that this feeling worsens when high school credits can't be earned, even with accommodations in place. They don't get that these students are less likely to graduate on time because they don't meet basic prerequisites (i.e. skills and content knowledge) for high school. Gaps are created where they didn't previously exist. Our system personnel claim that both panels are on the same page when it comes to when it is appropriate to modify, and there are definitely cases where it's necessary. We as a system are not speaking the same language because we lack a sense of K-12 pathways planning. Real planning only seems to happen when kids come to high school. I needs to start much earlier than that.
Argh...
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