APS general Ed with an IEP — all in same classroom?

[Anonymous]

I’m APS, are all the kids with an IEP who are in a general Ed classroom assigned to the SAME classroom in a given grade? My child has an IEP and was identified as gifted. I think for the gifted services, they have to have a cohort of a certain number of kids in their classroom. So will DC be in a classroom with x number of gifted kids and y number of kids with IEPs (y being all the kids with IEPs in that grade)?

[Anonymous]

In my experience at 3 different schools the gifted cluster and the SPED cluster are often together. Depending on numbers they may have them spread out over 2 classes.

[Anonymous]

I suspect this will depend on the school. At Ashlawn, that seemed to be the general practice. My kid was not placed in the co-taught class the year they got their IEP and only received push in services for a small portion of the the day. The next year they were in the co-taught class and even though they their service hours didn’t change, the support was there when they needed it throughout the day. It was much better. Your experience might differ, especially if your kid just needs services for a discrete thing like speech therapy.

My kid with an IEP wasn’t identified as gifted, but their sibling was. Honestly, I never noticed any difference in curriculum.

[Anonymous]

As others said, it likely depends on the school. I would talk with the principal ASAP regarding next year’s placement for your kid. At my kid’s school, they put all of the kids with IEPs into two classes, and most of the gifted kids in the other classes. My kid is 2E like yours, so I wasn’t sure where they’d place him, and he turned out to be the only kid in his class with an IEP. But it worked out well.

[Anonymous]

My kids' schools cluster both IEPs (with similar needs) so services can be provided more efficiently and GT so kids have peers. Sometimes those clusters are in the same class. Other times they cluster ESL students with the GT cluster.

I think it depends on the size of the student cohorts and the skills of the teachers. For instance, this year my kid's grade has one teacher who has done a lot of continuing education on GT learning so she has that cluster, while another has an advanced degree focused on dyslexia so she has an IEP cluster. Other years those clusters have been in the same class, but that didn't make sense give teacher backgrounds this year.

Every APS school does it's own thing, so you'll need to talk to your principal to know what to expect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m APS, are all the kids with an IEP who are in a general Ed classroom assigned to the SAME classroom in a given grade? My child has an IEP and was identified as gifted. I think for the gifted services, they have to have a cohort of a certain number of kids in their classroom. So will DC be in a classroom with x number of gifted kids and y number of kids with IEPs (y being all the kids with IEPs in that grade)?

Maybe, maybe not. Gifted kids should be clustered. In some schools where there are a high # of gifted, there will be more than one gifted cluster. IEP kids are often clustered for better use of resources, but don't have to be. But you can't have too high a number of sped kids together or it isn't general education anymore. Yes, you can have a gifted cluster and a sped cluster in the same class. Ask your admin how this will work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suspect this will depend on the school. At Ashlawn, that seemed to be the general practice. My kid was not placed in the co-taught class the year they got their IEP and only received push in services for a small portion of the the day. The next year they were in the co-taught class and even though they their service hours didn’t change, the support was there when they needed it throughout the day. It was much better. Your experience might differ, especially if your kid just needs services for a discrete thing like speech therapy.

My kid with an IEP wasn’t identified as gifted, but their sibling was. Honestly, I never noticed any difference in curriculum.

My kid was 2E. The clustering thing was a bit of a mixed bag. First year my kid was not in the sped cluster and did not have a co taught class. He got basically no support. Then for several years he was in the co taught class. The support was great. But it was not so great socially. He ended up being with the same kids year after year and they were not a great social fit. So it's a mixed bag.

[Anonymous]

IEPs cover so many different things, whether they will be part of a cluster will really depend on their needs as outlined in their IEP.

[Anonymous]

In NA, so many kids are “gifted” that many, many classes have the clusters. Most classes.