Entry #29 - April 12, 1999


"There was a small space for 'Suggestions to improve the school.' I wrote a page and a half (!), and stapled it together. On my way through the office I caught the principal's eye and waved my submission aloft. 'You'll be sorry you asked,' I teased, as she smiled ruefully."

Ahhhh.....Spring at last! I always know it's really here when I can hear frogs croaking in the swamp. Time to turn our attention to -- next year? What? We're only just getting into the swing of things for THIS year! But no, it's time to plan our school program and organizational model for the turn of the millennium.

My more seasoned colleagues mostly shrug, mutter under their breath, and fill in the form letter we get in our mailboxes about grade and subject preferences. There was a small space for "Suggestions to improve the school." I wrote a page and a half (!), and stapled it together. On my way through the office I caught the principal's eye and waved my submission aloft. "You'll be sorry you asked," I teased, as she smiled ruefully. I did manage, though, to persuade her to take home Cunningham's "Schools That Work" and read selected bits. The book is full of practical ideas and proven initiatives. Although it is aimed at the lower elementary level, there are a number of ideas and whole-school approaches that we should consider -- things that take a change of attitude and timetable, rather than money, to implement.

One thing we're looking at, and I hear from people in other districts that they are moving the same way, is returning to self-contained special education classrooms for most of our identified learning-disability and slow learner students. There is no question that inclusion can and does work, but it requires support staff, resources, materials and planning/collaborating time that are not available to us.

When I tell people in more fortunate school areas that teachers in my school are expected to deal with 10-15 high-needs (and very diverse) special education kids with IEP's in each CLASS (and they may teach 5-6 classes) without ANY resource materials (easier reading material, multimedia, tape recorders, AV equipment, computers), only two periods weekly from a teachers' assistant (for all 50-75 special needs kids), no volunteers, no library access, and no time except passing in the hall to collaborate with Special Education staff -- they say, "How can they expect people to get the job done!!!" Hmm, I have my cynical thoughts on THAT! If there were a real commitment at the district level to "getting the job done" for these students, we wouldn't be IN this situation to begin with. However, since we, at the school, DO care that these students' needs are not being met, how can we better organize what we have to improve things?

The downside of separate classes is that they can result in lower achievement, if expectations are low and less-qualified or inexperienced teachers staff them. Then, too, the students are less likely to be exposed to peer modeling of enthusiasm for learning, effective thinking strategies, and the like. My preference is for a mix of the two -- small-group, intensive support and appropriate instruction as needed in the core skills (writing, reading, math) and inclusion for the social studies/science and rotary subjects.

However, our timetable is so chopped up and fragmented, with neverending interruptions, that the disorganized students have a tough time coping with it; they need longer blocks of time to work on core skills without jumping up to go somewhere else every 40 minutes. Ideally, our science and social studies programs would be more "hands-on" than they are. The new science curriculum is very demanding, with complex material about cell theory, optics and more. Unfortunately, we don't have any resources whatever to present this material to students in meaningful ways. Without textbooks, reference books, lab equipment, a-v equipment, models or even kits that can be circulated from the district office, our science teacher is forced to rely mainly on putting notes on the chalkboard for students to copy.

Even reference books are not available, as the library is usually locked because there is no one to staff it. The learning-disabled students often have no luck whatever copying notes from the board (and can rarely read what they DID copy). Without more multimodal involvement, they frequently have little grasp of the underlying concepts and relationships. If we go with a self-contained class model, we will likely not include those students in science and social studies with their peers because the work is too paper-and-pencil oriented for them to succeed.

At the staffing committee meeting, we played with the enrollment numbers a bit, and quickly realized that if we do go with the self-contained class model, we will have to get several more teachers or we will have "waiting lists."

A light bulb went on in most of our minds at about the same time. The so-called "inclusion" model we have had has enabled the district to save money by not providing the staff necessary for the special education students -- but it was not patently obvious this was the case. If we have, say, 4 special classes, and still a "waiting list" of 30-40 students, it will be obvious that some kids are not being served. Since legal issues come into play here, this could get very interesting. There would certainly be some pressure, higher up, to provide the staff needed. I'm personally tired of covering up for decisions made at other levels that are not in the students' best interests, so I hope we go for it. I'd be happy to take one of these programs myself, and demonstrate that a separate class can be "back-to-basics", challenging and innovative all at the same time!

The ultimate test is, what will benefit our students most? With the new and more rigorous secondary program ahead of them, they need maximum opportunities to develop and consolidate their literacy and numeracy skills, before they are forced to choose "tracked" programs that may limit their futures. For many of our learning-disabled students, two years in a demanding, intensive and personalized "special class" is bound to yield better results than has cutting them adrift with only token support in the mainstream. I wish, though, we weren't forced to make such choices. Why can't we have the resources we need to teach ALL the students effectively in the regular program?


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