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Special Education Teachers Chatboard

Interview

by Sarah

Mar 28, 2016

I have a short, 8 question interview to complete for one of my college courses. If a special educator is available to email please send me one and I will reply promptly. Thank you! sarah.[email removed]

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Innovation Project for Students with ADHD

by Lehigh Univ. Students

Mar 27, 2016

Special Education Teachers, We are students at Lehigh University working on an innovation project to improve physical coping methods for students with ADHD. If you know students with ADHD - or know someone who does - please copy the link below to take/share this brief, anonymous survey which will be used as market research for our project: [link re...See More

Mar 25, 2016

I have been teaching for almost 10 years and last year I took a new job as the K-4th grade behavior intervention teacher. Last year was fairly smooth, but this year has been rough. I started the year with 2 new paras, I have 3 total, but that is not the rough part. I have 3 full time students and 17 other students that have behavior plans and have ...See More

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Question

by Jeff

Mar 20, 2016

I am a veteran special education teacher with 26 years experience. I have taught self-contained, resource, and also have done inclusion in recent years. The question I have is what changes do you anticipate in special education now that the No Child Left Behind law has been changed?

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Using a Sped classroom for in school suspension

by Tch

Feb 25, 2016

Is it against the law to place General Education students in a self contained Special Education classroom as their in school suspension? And there are Special Education students being served in that Special Education classroom all day!

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AM As a parent of a child who was special ed I would be angry over that one. The principal and I would be having a chat over it without a doubt. I doubt it is illegal as who would think to make sure they don't turn a special ed class into a dumping ground. Wouldn't hurt to put a bug in the ear of the parents that will step forward over it.

Mar 19, 2016

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chica I'm not sure about the law. However, I thought gen ed students were suppose to be with a gen ed teacher? What about their educational minutes?

Mar 19, 2016

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Curious about caseloads and working conditions...(long!)

by KAS

Mar 9, 2016

I work as a special education teacher in a multicategorical state. In our district we used to have a formula to determine how many caseload hours equaled a full time position. Recently, the formula was eliminated because of a new way of serving students. Previously we primarily pulled students to our resource room for services. We are now told that...See More

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LN I work in a small community and our caseloads are based on a formula. I don't think a formula takes into account all that you do and very often is guess and check based on input. They don't always listen to teachers and have their own idea of what is appropriate as a number. I am currently teaching 4 students that are level 3 (severe disabilities) ...See More

Mar 15, 2016

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sped I worked at a district two years ago that had several sped vacancies that they could not fill. We were one of the lowest paid in the state, with all the problems bad schools have. The district really should have been taken over by the state, but the state didn't want to do it because... then they have to run that crap hole, and they didn't want to ...See MoreI worked at a district two years ago that had several sped vacancies that they could not fill. We were one of the lowest paid in the state, with all the problems bad schools have. The district really should have been taken over by the state, but the state didn't want to do it because... then they have to run that crap hole, and they didn't want to do that.

Anyway, they tried to give each high school teacher 25-30 case loads. I told them I would do 20, and that was it. If they gave me more, I would do the first 20 on my list, and the kids at the end of the alphabet would not see any case management from me. I told them they could fire me, and then they would be down 4 sped teacher instead of 3, and that they wouldn't replace me that year as that there weren't any sped math people willing to work for them. I just didn't care. They were shocked, but I double-dog dared them to fire me. They gave me 20. I don't know or care about what they did with the others.

I really don't have any advice for you other than treat admin like crap and don't care about the job. They don't care about you and treat you like garbage. Teachers are treated worse than Walmart workers, so treat the job like a job at Walmart. Then, work towards getting a job doing something else.

On 3/09/16, KAS wrote: > I work as a special education teacher in a > multicategorical state. In our district we used to have > a formula to determine how many caseload hours equaled a > full time position. Recently, the formula was eliminated > because of a new way of serving students. Previously we > primarily pulled students to our resource room for > services. We are now told that services for students in > K-1 should all be pushed into the classrooms. In the > building I work in we are struggling with this because > K-1 alone has 12 classrooms. Next year they are adding > 2nd grade to this new plan so it will be 18 classrooms. > In addition, caseloads have become higher and planning > time is nearly non existent. Our building has 5 resource > teachers and our caseloads range from 22-30. We are in a > high poverty area and many of our students qualify under > OHI, ED, Autism or Cog. Impairment. I personally have a > group of high need students who have many hours on their > IEPS. I also have students in grades K, 1, 2, and 5. I > have at least 13 groups to prep for each day and only 30 > minutes a day of planning/testing time. So during my > "planning" time I am usually testing students for their 3 > year or initial evals. Then if I don't have meetings > after school I write reports, IEPS and maybe lesson plans > if I can get to them. To add insult to injury, those of > us with the most education/experience have not had a > raise in 2 years plus they added an extra 30 minutes to > our day. > Anyway...my questions are: > 1. Do you have a formula to determine caseloads? > or > Do you have a cap on caseloads? > 2. How much planning/testing/prep time do you get each > day? > 3. What does your program look like? Multicategorical? > push in vs pull out or both? How many grades do you > serve? > > I am just wondering if this is typical or if we are being > taken advantage of. Morale is at a low and we are > struggling as a district to find people to fill SPED > jobs. (It doesn't help we are the lowest paid state in > the nation) > > TIA

Mar 19, 2016

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self contained LD classes

by MLU

Feb 8, 2016

This is our high school's frustration; We have a high school of approximately 1600 students. I am a Freshman Learning Disabilities teacher. I am a co-teacher in an Algebra class and English class. I also teach a self contained Pre-Algebra class to our LD students that do not have the skills and can not keep up with the gen ed Pre algebra class.The ...See More

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IEP goals Does this mean that the IEPs of the students impacted by this decision will need to be amended to reflect the new placement to cotaught classes? Were their goals written to reflect the progress that small group instruction provides? It seems to me that the administration's decision changed the placement for these students if the inclusion model was...See More

Feb 21, 2016

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LN The way I understand your question, it would be considered illegal. I have run into it in a few places, but sometimes they do it illegally anyhow by having the special education teacher under the math teacher. I'm not condoning skirting the law, but that is what I have seen. However, I believe if you open the class up to general education students ...See More

Mar 15, 2016

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What Students Who Give Up Have In Common

by Teachers.Net Gazette

Feb 24, 2016

Teaching kids that there’s value in not giving up...

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Teaching in Kansas

by Jill

Feb 20, 2016

Hello Everyone, I'm a special education teacher from California and I'm considering a move to Kansas. Does anyone out there have experience teaching special ed. in Kansas?

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Intrepreting scores from WJIII

by altexit

Feb 19, 2016

I have a student who wants me to explain his test results, not the LSSP.. so I am looking for a site or resource that gives me specific information so I can tell him what it means. (I need to be able to account for specific scores.) ! Any help appreciated so much!

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