Anonymous wrote:Both my children have sped services in elementary. For my younger, he has behavioral support only and is not really grouped with the other children receiving services. He is high academics and does not receive push in or pull out for academics (push in is when the sped teacher helps within the regular classroom while pull out refers to a teacher taking sped children out of the general classroom to provide instruction). For my older child who needs academic support, they definitely try to group the children with others that are receiving similar support. Otherwise, the sped teacher would never be able to meet all of the needs.

So it would make sense to group the special ed kids into one classroom so the teacher could support them more efficiently.

Both my children have sped services in elementary. For my younger, he has behavioral support only and is not really grouped with the other children receiving services. He is high academics and does not receive push in or pull out for academics (push in is when the sped teacher helps within the regular classroom while pull out refers to a teacher taking sped children out of the general classroom to provide instruction). For my older child who needs academic support, they definitely try to group the children with others that are receiving similar support. Otherwise, the sped teacher would never be able to meet all of the needs.

My son has an IEP - they mix the kids in classes, but sometimes he went to another classroom for one subject so that the special ed teacher could work with more than one kid at the same time. So he was in all regular classrooms, but not always his own.

This is a dumb question, but what's a push in service?

OP again. What is NT and LD?

Anonymous wrote:At our Loudoun school, all the "resource kids" are in one class per grade. It is usually the same teacher year to year. It's not the same as the severe special Ed kids who have their own class.

OP here. I actually think our school may do this as well. The ESOL teacher was also there and I noticed the handful of ESOL kids who were in my child's class last year.

The smarter/better behaved kids from my son's class were also placed in his class.

I just felt like all the "normal" kids were put in the other class and my child's class had all the ESOL, special needs and gifted kids.

I actually don't think my child is necessarily gifted. He is very well behaved and tries/performs well in school.

I am not trying to stir up drama. I am just genuinely curious since I thought the placement of kids was very obvious and then the special needs teacher said she would be there.

When DD was in second grade, her teacher and the LD teacher "team taught". They had a double classroom. I don't know how much was done separately. Not sure if they still do it this way, but it seemed to work fine. DD never complained and loved the LD teacher. DD was a gifted kid, but socially naïve. Not sure she ever understood that he was not her teacher, and that was fine with me.

I'm sure he worked separately with those who were "his" kids, but it was a nice inclusive class. There was one mom who called me and wanted to "stir" things up--she didn't like the "other" kids being in the class.

When my DS was in high school, he was in a "team taught" class with the Special Ed teacher and the science teacher. Same model as the second grade class my DD was in. DS said the class was just awful. He complained about the behavior of the kids, etc. I imagine the gap was more extreme than in second grade. After that, DS decided to take Honors classes. DS was far from a model student, so I suspect the behavior issues must have been quite bad. DD had the Science teacher prior to that (Honors class) and she was a great teacher. Not sure the LD teacher in there with DS was so good. Sometimes, it's just the chemistry of the kids in the class--or the teachers may not have worked well together.

"Special Needs" is a really really large umbrella. There are different issues that are not related to each other. There are also special needs students at all levels of classes, so you will see them in remedial classes, general ed classes and advanced classes. It all depends on the individual student. IME, special ed students are not grouped into one gen Ed or advanced ed classroom.

At our Loudoun school, all the "resource kids" are in one class per grade. It is usually the same teacher year to year. It's not the same as the severe special Ed kids who have their own class.

Relax. I highly doubt all of the special needs kids are grouped together in one class. On the other hand, there are probably some small clusters that are arranged to most efficiently meet their needs, and teachers are "pushed in" to those classrooms for portions of the day. That allows the classroom teacher to focus on the "general population."

Please don't worry about your NT son getting a raw deal for being in that class. My son's school has a high population of English Language Learners. In first grade, his class was "team taught" with one of the teachers being an ELL teacher.

It was an amazing year. My son's teacher gave him a huge amount of individualized attention. He really enjoyed the class.

It's important (as always) to have good teachers, and particularly in these situations to have teachers that work well together, but you should not assume that it will be a bad situation for your NT kid.

Many inclusion programs do this in order to be able to service the children by one teacher or other specialists who plug/push into the classroom.

Schools shouldn't dump kids with special needs in one classroom, but some schools do that. However it just sounds like the Special Ed teacher is providing push in services for a kid or kids. As inclusion becomes the norm, you should see more of this.

She is doing push-in services for particular kids per the IEP. Pretend she's not there. You are not allowed to ask who she's helping.

There are typically several special ed kids whose IEP require to have an extra assistant in the general education to help them. My son is one of those SN kids.

Last week at open house, the special ed teacher was in my son's class. She said that she will be assisting in the classroom. At my son's school, only the kindergarten classes have instructional assistants. Wondering if all the special needs children are put into the same class. My child is not special needs.