Jennifer Armenia

EDUL 6023

Assignment 2

 

10 school wide norms or conditions that must exist to support effective inclusive special education programs are:

 

1. An IEP must be in place and implemented.  Regular education and special education teachers will work together to implement the IEP.
2. Teachers and staff will participate in training in order to support teachers that work in an inclusive setting.
3. Resources that are appropriate meet the students’ needs are available for special education and regular education teachers.
4. Teachers will be flexible and be willing to make accommodations for students with disabilities.
5. Teachers will be able to set high expectations for all students but make sure students with disabilities have accommodations to meet those expectations.
6. Parents, regular education teachers, special education teachers and administrators will collaborate in order to provide a successful learning environment for students with disabilities.
7. Teachers will use different instructional strategies to meet the needs of students with learning disabilities.
8. Teachers will have a shared planning time with special education teachers.
9. Teachers will take advantage of student’s interests and internal motivation to teach necessary skills.
10. Parents are informed about all support programs and services that are available for their child as well as being involved in placement meetings.

 

 

Consider your own school’s level of preparedness by briefly responding to each of the questions posed in the “Checking Your Schools Readiness” article.  Discuss whether or not the items to which you responded negatively are on your proposed list of norms or conditions  

 

I believe that my school is uses many inclusive practices.  We already have many students who are place in full inclusion classrooms and more and more students are being placed in inclusion classrooms every year.  My school does a very good job meeting with parents and teachers before a child is being placed for the following year and discussing the child’s abilities and accommodations that he or she is to receive.  This allows the teacher to be able to be aware of necessary accommodations for the child before the school year starts. One thing my school could do to improve the operation of inclusion classrooms is to allow regular education teachers to have more training on working with students with disabilities.  Many teachers are told they will be having an inclusion child next year and are not given the proper training to be successful with the child.  This is a disservice to the child and teacher because the child is not able to be as successful and the teacher gets frustrated because he or she doesn’t know what strategies to use to help the child be successful.  Another thing I would like to see my school implement to create a better inclusion program is allow shared planning time for regular education and special education teachers.  Currently the only teachers that share a common planning time are teachers on the same grade level; this does not include special education teachers and support staff. 

On my list of proposed norms and conditions I included having common planning time and more staff development because I feel that is where our inclusion program is weakest.  Many teachers are afraid of teaching inclusion because they don’t have the knowledge to make the experience successful for both students and teachers.  I feel by providing more staff development and common planning time the regular education teacher will be able to make an inclusion experience a positive one.

 

Five specific suggestions that are relevant to my school are:

 

1. Teachers need to be provided with in-service training that identifies their needs.  This is number 2 on my proposed list of norms.
2. Ability to make appropriate expectations for all students.  This is number 4 and 5 on my list of proposed norms. 
3. Parents need to be informed about policies, procedures and placement of their child.  This is stated under number 10 on my list of norms.
4. Working as a team with parents and special education teachers to see what skills a child needs.  This is number 6 and number 8 on my list of norms.
5. A variety of instructional arrangements are available.  This is number 7 on my list of norms.