What is going on with the Office of Special Education?
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Anonymous
You sound like a great teacher, but many teachers aren't willing to make even the most basic accommodations available. Many teachers wouldn't even bother to upload those slide shows much less think about how they could further help their students. So you should know that you're already doing a lot. This is college but I know a child with notes accommodations in college who gets notes from a fellow student. I don't know how that works, whether that student gets paid for the notes or the teacher just asked and the child provides them as a favor or for extra credit. |
Anonymous
Voice only or video also? |
Anonymous
Only voice. Kid couldn't meaningfully both write what was on the board and listen at the same time so used the voice recording to review written stuff. |
Anonymous
Student note takers are paid in college. Schools advertise in classes they need note takers, a student applies to be the note taker, if hired, the student uploads the notes to the Disability Student Services, and the disabled child accesses the notes via their student portal. Confidentiality is protected. Most professors however have begun uploading lecture notes before class for all students to access and annotate as needed. That’s just a good teaching practice so students are paying attention to the discussion and explanations vs. copying information onto paper. Students with approved accommodations can also record with their laptop to a program that transcribes what is said in class. Sometimes that’s a helpful backup. |
Anonymous
I have a child that has great auditory memory but was slow at writing. Basically she had difficulty writing and processing information at the same time. If she just sat and listened, she retained more information than when she tried taking notes to the point she could quote the teacher. Some children have unusual strengths and weaknesses. The key to learning is teaching to a child’s strengths. |
Anonymous
This sounds like something either needs a parent, student, teacher conference or an IEP meeting to resolve. The student is having difficulty getting the information he/she needs to learn from the class discussion. You are providing slides but are not sure what more is needed to be helpful. A face to face conversation might help the student say what he/she is needing to be successful. As a parent, I don’t know what a prep is. My child has received PowerPoint slides as notes which are sometimes helpful and sometimes not. My child last year had teachers who didn’t provide any notes despite my child’s IEP which impacted my child’s performance till the notes were provided. Finally, as a General Education Teacher, you should send input of your concerns to the 504/IEP team if you have a child with 20 accommodations. A child with 20 accommodations is a child in need of Special Education Services to teach skills and coping strategies to have greater independence. 20 accommodations is an example of a school system that teaches learned helplessness (we are going to do XYZ for the student) vs. teaching students skills to help them compensate for their disabilities. |
Anonymous
Maybe we aren’t parenting them properly. |
Anonymous
Tell me how you parent a child to cure their disability that the school system agrees the child has. Realize that it takes a comprehensive evaluation and specialists to identify the disability and needs of the child. None of whom said bad parenting is the cause of the disability. People like you are the very reason why there are civil rights laws to protect students with disabilities. |
Anonymous
A prep is a course. High school teachers teach multiple courses and must PREPare for each of them. As far as the 20 accommodations are concerned, my take is this teacher is not writing about one student with that many accommodations. Instead, this teacher has 20 other students with 504s/IEPs amongst the 150 or more students this teacher sees every day. |
Anonymous
In all likelihood the teacher has 100 out of 150 with accommodations. It's gotten so pretty much anyone who wants that can get them which sadly makes it difficult for those who really need them. |
Anonymous
The sped kids at our MS school average about 12-15 accommodations each. The 504 kids have about 5 each. Out of about 1000 kids, 150 are sped, another 50 have 504s. It's a meaningful workload. |
Anonymous
Nationally, 15% of public school students have IEPs. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgg/students-with-disabilities Therefore, your school numbers are not outside the norm. What is unusual are the high number of accommodations needed per student with IEPs. MCPS has understaffed Special Education Teachers and Para Educators for years. Are these students receiving appropriate special education services to teach them independent skills so they don’t need double digit accommodations? Seems like an example of learned helplessness that puts the burden on the General Education Teacher versus teaching the students skills to help themselves. Examples - you can teach a student skills to read or you can simply provide audio accommodations so they never have to read. You can teach a student how to write or you can provide a scribe so they never learn how to write. You can teach a child organization skills so they are self sufficient or you can assign responsibility to a teacher to remind students of daily tasks. Look at the individual needs of the student and if skills can be taught in lieu of doing something for the child, the special education services should be provided to teach the skills to the student. The number of accommodations should be decreasing as a child progresses through a school system, not increasing. The goals and objectives should adjust as needed so the students is making meaningful progress. |
Anonymous
| Accommodations are less work for the Special Education Coordinator (often the chair of IEP meetings) and cheaper for MCPS to provide than educational services to a child with disabilities. General Education Teachers are then forced to meet the demands of delivering a laundry list of accommodations without support from Special Education staff. The General Education Teachers should be unhappy with a broken school system instead of blaming students with disabilities for the documents school teams write. The time for them to express concerns is on their teacher reports to the team and at the meetings the attend for the student. |
Anonymous
| From experience, I can report that the ( now) former head of Resolution and Compliance was a vocal advocate for the school's position in IEP meetings, regardless of the stated purpose of R&C. Attitude towards parents was to "manage" them. . |
Anonymous
Our experience as well. She also didn’t do a good job in keeping the school system compliant as she chaired the IEP meeting. Due Process is a real probability considering the violations. She will be called to testify given her participation in the IEP meeting. I get that MCPS is short staffed to the point students are still not receiving the services MCPS has agreed to. Either work with parents to pay 100% of the expense of a private provider or hire an employee to provide services. Don’t neglect your responsibility then expect parents to carry the burden for the expense. In the end, students are not receiving the education they need and there will be a lifetime of repercussions for students with disabilities being passed through MCPS without fundamental skills for life after high school graduation. |