what is role of teacher in case of chidren with special needs?

Answer 1

If you have students with special needs, each student needs to have an Individual Education Plan (IEP). The IEP will detail what needs each student has and the modifications for that student. You should get each IEP before school starts, or during the first week. If not, track down the caseworker and bug them till they get you the IEP!

Your responsibility is to modify your lesson, homework, seating plan...whatever, to meet the needs of each student.

So for example, I had a student who had hearing problems, his IEP stated he needed to sit in the front. Another kid had severe dyslexia so his IEP stated that he had to have his tests read to him, so an aide came and did just that.

If you have any questions about what a particular student needs, talk with his/her case worker, or the Special Ed coordinater at your school or district. And review these often. I also would keep notes on each kid on and IEP, just to cover yourself, in case someone quesions what you have done for a student.

I will say this about IEPs, this does not mean that the student gets a free ride. I've had many kids who did not follow the things they were suppoed to do in the IEP, and they failed. If a student does not pass, even with all the modifications notify the parents but don't be afraid to give the student the grade he/she has earned.

Answer 2

The role of the teacher is to make whatever accommodations are necessary as documented on the student's IEP, to use additional modalities to help the student learn, and to nurture and educate every student. It is the teacher's responsibility to monitor progress towards the student's goals, and to communicate with the parents and case manager the student's progress and/or needs.

Answer 3

The role of a teacher who works with children with special needs is the same as with any teacher: To teach the children. What is taught and how it is taught might differ, but teaching is the job of a teacher.

Answer 4

Nanaimo parents of students with Special Needs, focus group report


Five parents of students with special needs participated in this Focus Group. Each was asked to respond to the following questions:

1. Please tell us about your children, their exceptionalities, the school they attend and whether they are in modified programs or have adaptations within the regular curriculum.
2. Tell us about how you viewed the services provided to your child/children before the current school year, and how they changed over time.
3. In terms of this school year, how do you view the services provided to your child/children, your communication with school staff, and how have they changed?

Responses to each question are shown below.

1.
Please tell us about your children, their exceptionalities, the school they attend, and whether they are in modified programs or have adaptations within the regular curriculum.

The five parents had children who had attended a range of elementary and secondary schools in the district. One had both biological and adoptive children with special needs, and had therefore experienced a range of contacts with various Nanaimo schools, as well as a wide range of exceptionalities. Some of the children of the parents who attended had moved from elementary to secondary as they progressed through the school system, while some had been moved from one school to another at the choice of the parents, who stated that they were wanting to find more-inclusive settings. The parents described a range of exceptionalities in their children, including Tourettes, Severe Learning Disabilities, Seizure Disorder, Quadriplegic, Cerebral Palsy, and Down Syndrome.

The parents described a range of adaptations used to facilitate their children’s learning. These included scribing and adapted tests. Some modified programs were also mentioned. Parents described a continuum of placement, from the fully-integrated to the partial use of the separate Life Skills classes.

All the parents were strong advocates for their children, and had been actively advocating for them over several years. This provided a perspective over time, but also perhaps reflects the views of those parents highly involved in their children’s schooling, in part because of concerns with what they see as the capacity of schools to include their children effectively.
2.
Tell us about how you viewed the services provided to your child/children before the current school year, and how they changed over time.
1. The parents often felt that it was “us versus the system.”

Parents felt that they and those who worked in the education system were often in disagreement, and occasionally in conflict, concerning what were appropriate placement and strategies to include their children effectively. The parents spoke of “constant fights,” or “every year being a battle.” Such fights appeared to include almost all educational staff at various times: district staff, school-based Administrative Officers (AOs), teachers, and Special Education Assistants (SEAs). At times such conflict was severely stressful to parents. One said, “I felt betrayed and lied-to by people in school – I did not trust a single person.” One AO was reported as telling a parent that her child was a sociopath and would become a serial killer. Another AO was reported as frequently telephoning a parent and expecting her to come to the school and remove her child at a moment’s notice.

Some parents reported concerns with teachers’ attitude towards their children. One was reported to have said: “If he can’t keep up, he shouldn’t be here.” They talked of considerable disparities between some teaching styles and the learning styles of their children, stating that some teachers were unwilling to make any change to their teaching which would have enabled their child to have been included more effectively. They described some years as “lost years for their children,” or said that some periods in school were “a complete write-off,” with little apparent gain or progress.
2. Sometimes the system worked well to include their children, and the chidren progressed both academically and socially.

In almost every instance, when the system did or did not work well, the parents attributed such progress (or the lack of it) to individual educators. In the same way that the parents described concerns and conflicts with almost every category of person working in schools, so they similarly recognized and credited all categories of educators with periods of success for their children. One described a “super” SEA. Another described an “incredible” teacher, who did not read the files on the student so as not to be biased, but who started with an open attitude and a willingness to think through what would work best with the parent. Supportive AOs were described who helped the children, supported the teacher, and welcomed the parents. One parent positively described the efforts of staff in one of the district’s alternate settings, where the aim was to reintegrate the child into a regular school through various approaches and strategies.

Part of the frustration for these parents appeared to be the unpredictability of the system. They never knew when their children would experience a welcoming and inclusive setting in which they would make academic and social progress, or when the child would, in the perspective of the parents, be largely excluded from appropriate academic and/or social activities. They might experience some success and then consider that success jeopardized because a particular SEA was replaced. Generally, though, the parents stated that they believed their children’s positive experiences tended to be less frequent and shorter-lasting than those which were negative or problematic.
3. The parents had been advocating for their children for many years, and were becoming tired of the struggle.

Advocacy for this group had been a constant – they never felt relaxed enough not to carefully monitor the school experiences of their child. They considered themselves as “professional,” meaning that they believed they had gained considerable experience and acquired many skills that could help their child learn. The particular form of advocacy identified by the parents included not only promotion of their children’s rights but also constructive suggestions for strategies and approaches which would work well with their children. Some had purchased teaching resources and given them to teachers. Parents had also formed strong networks which enabled them to advocate more effectively, and to share resources and information. Such networks clearly empowered the parents and reduced their sense of isolation, as well as their frustration in dealing with what they often considered an unfriendly and unwelcoming system.
4. Some parents had initially placed their children in French Immersion settings, but found no support for their exceptionalities there.

Those parents whose children had been in French Immersion were bitter about what they considered to be non-support for exceptionalities. Both had subsequently removed their children from French Immersion, one with some immediate gratification as additional support was offered when the child moved to a non-Immersion setting.1
5. The parents reflected on the difference between what they saw as their children’s legal entitlement to a full and inclusive education, and what they saw as the reality.

One parent stated, “Maybe I read the School Act wrong, but I thought all kids should have an education.” While the parents had been critical of some educators, they also believed that the problem with providing a fully-supported inclusive setting was also in part systemic. Some clearly intimated that they believed that there was insufficient funding to ensure adequate support for their children. The parents spoke of money “being sliced every year” from Special Education budgets, which in their view incrementally reduced the capacity of the school system to include their children. These comments also indicate that these parents considered the funding issue to have been a problem for some time.
6. There was considerable frustration with what the parents considered to be the erratic allocation of SEAs.

Two issues were discussed – one the problem of finding and maintaining support from a caring and competent SEA, and the other with time allocation. In the first area, the parents spoke of how important the work of the SEA was to their child. Sometimes they found that the SEA working with their child was a “good fit,” with high levels of competence, caring, and skills. But they might as easily find their child spending time with an SEA who was, in the view of the parents, less competent and less caring. This frequently resulted in a series of meetings, and, in some cases, conflict. Part of the erratic nature of SEA support was the knowledge that SEAs could be shifted at any time for a variety of reasons. In some cases, the school might have to reorganize its staffing if students moved into or out of the school. In other cases, the SEA might be “bumped” as CUPE seniority clauses were invoked. In some cases, the parents had found CUPE to be supportive in finding solutions to placement situations, and stated that the union had played a constructive role. Nevertheless, the parents had been concerned about bumping over time, finding it disruptive to their children’s needs for continuity and stability. The parents also spoke about frequent reductions in the hours that SEAs were allocated over several years as funds were reduced over time. This also caused considerable disruption, as schools struggled to provide SEA support with fewer resources to pay for SEAs, reflecting a systemic funding problem.
3.
In terms of this school year, how do you view the services provided to your child/children, your communication with school staff, and how have they changed?
1. Several parents were pleased with schools’ efforts to effectively include their children this school year.

Some of the statements made by parents included:

“It’s working – a beautiful thing.”

“This year is a bonus – the teacher has understanding and knowledge.”

“It’s better this year – my child is really part of the school. Self-esteem is up, on sports teams, phenomenal Math and Art.”

“The teacher is very respectful of my child, and is doing the best he can.”

“He likes the teacher, the teacher likes him.”

“This teacher is incredibly creative – receptive to the wheelchair, constantly rearranging the classroom (to facilitate participation and access). This guy (teacher) needs to be cloned.”

The quantity and range of positive comments about the inclusion of their children this school year was somewhat unexpected after the earlier comments from the parents. But they also reflect the fact that positive inclusionary experiences can and do exist. While there was recognition and appreciation by the parents, there was little sense of celebration. It was as though they had been in this situation before – enjoying the positive but not sure that it could last, as subsequent comments indicated. While there were several positive comments, there were also a number of less-positive statements about problems with implementing inclusion.
2. Parents were noticing that some teachers’ efforts were extraordinary, but were concerned that they could not be sustained.

The parents spoke of teachers “working their buns off, trying hard” to make everything work during the current school year. They also stated that teachers seemed “incredibly stressed” this year, and that they as parents were noticing what they described as “a subtle shift in attitude” among teachers. This shift, they implied, was linked to teachers’ workload and stress levels, and was of concern to them if it signalled teacher caution about the manageability of inclusion. One parent spoke of a teacher with an “enormous workload” of 11 hours a day, which the parent described as “unsustainable.” Part of the shift in attitude was reflected in statements made by the parents that, in their view, teachers and AOs appeared more nervous about communicating with parents this year than they had in previous years.
3. The parents considered problems with the implementation of inclusion partly linked to individual educators’ attitudes and capacity, and partly linked to systemic factors, particularly funding.

Just as there were glowing reports of welcoming teachers, SEAs, and AOs this school year, there were also more familiar frustrations, repeats of incidents or patterns which, in the parents’ views, had occurred in most years of their children’s schooling. One parent said, “They’ve been doing inclusion for twenty years, but there’s still no apparent process, my kid is still just dumped in a class.” Others spoke of on-going difficulties in placing their children into a range of classes, with little apparent flexibility. One said that her child was just given the same class assignments as all the other children, with no attempt at adaptation. But other comments appeared to focus on systemic issues, and whether the education system actually was inclusive, with statements such as: “The system claims that it welcomes all children, but the dollars are not there to do it.” Another said: “We really question where we’re going with inclusion.” This relatively straightforward statement cuts to the heart of the issue of the province’s inclusionary educational policy. For these parents, there appeared to be a dichotomy between legislation/policy and the reality they observed in schools, with the reality less inclusive than they believed the legislation and policy to indicate.

One parent said: “Children who need support should have it and they don’t get it. It’s all about funding.” Another said: “I thought all kids were legally entitled to an education, but my child has only been in school half the time this year.” These comments indicated the parents’ view of the system as at best unresponsive, and possibly discriminatory, in terms of its willingness to include their children.
4. Problems occurring this year were familiar to the parents, as they had occurred in other years.

There was almost a sense of monotony and regularity about the barriers and problems the parents perceived when they were happening in schools this year. One said, “We’re always retraining people in the education system – over and over again.” Others said that last year, one AO, or another SEA, was “great,” but that person had been replaced with someone they considered less welcoming, or less skilled. Some spoke of their dealings with the school system as being “a battle every year,” or that some school-based Administrative Officers had a “we know it all” attitude that discouraged parental input, and often developed programs or approaches that the parents considered inappropriate for their children’s learning needs. In one case, busing appeared to be a problem, with safety concerns about a wheelchair being appropriately strapped to its support. In another, parents felt that some teachers were stepping “over the line” of their responsibilities in making statements about what the teachers perceived to be the medication needs of a child. From the parents’ perspectives, such comments crossed into the medical diagnosis domain and should not be the concern of teachers. Teachers’ comments about medication and other issues sometimes made the parents feel that their parenting capacities were being implicitly criticized. If a teacher suggested medication was necessary it implied that the parent was negligent in accessing such medication, while in fact the absence of medication may have been a medical decision.

Whatever the problem or difficulty, it almost always was stated in terms of being a person, whether the teacher, AO, or SEA. If the parents were happy with the current experiences of their children in school, there was also a sense of trepidation in case there were changes in personnel. Some spoke of a very positive and productive relationship between their child and a Special Education Assistant, only to see the SEA change assignments and be replaced by another, who was often considered by the parents to be less supportive or less capable. The parents conveyed the sense that they could never stop their vigilance of the school system if they wanted to ensure positive experiences for their children, as their experience told them that things could change suddenly, and for the worse.
5. Compromises were being made between educators and parents, and there was a sense of pragmatism as well as advocacy among the parents.

One parent spoke of their child being in a school’s “Skills for Life” class during a portion of the school week. This is a class separate from the regular grade-level class, where the child spent the rest of his school time. Ideally, the parent wanted her child in the regular class for the whole of his schooling, while the school staff preferred that some time be spent in the separate class. The parent’s reflection on this was that “I can’t get everything I want,” but also indicated that she was willing to compromise and be pragmatic in reaching an understanding with school staff.

Another spoke of what was considered to be an “academic scrape-through,” meaning that the child was just reaching the pass-level in courses. But rather than this being seen as problematic, the parent considered it to be a “huge success” for the child, both in the sense of the child’s progress, and in terms of the system’s progress in capacity to educate the child.

There was no sense that the compromises, or pragmatic approaches, were blunting the parents’ advocacy. They conveyed the impression that they would strongly advocate whenever necessary for their children, but that at times they had to recognize the need for compromise, to balance their advocacy and expectations with the school’s capacity to include their child. There may also have been some sense of compromise at times between what the parents and staff at the school considered appropriate strategies and placements.
6. The parents continue to offer strategies, ideas, and resources to educators which parents believe will help teachers and others to educate their children.

Sometimes such offers were positively received, with successful experiences for the child, while at other times the parents felt that they were rejected or inappropriately used by staff at the school their child attended. Strategies, resources, and ideas ranged from a straightforward seating request, to many hours of work developing ideas for programs. One suggestion involved asking the teacher to sit the child at the front of the class, so that the child would know the teacher “was keeping an eye on him.” A parent spent 70 hours working on writing an IEP and program, with the teacher being supportive and providing input. Others reported differences between educators and parents concerning IEPs, with some parents wanting IEPs for each subject. One parent spoke of the materials and resources that had been purchased and provided to the school at the parent’s expense. Some parents felt welcome to drop in to the school at any time with ideas and support, and for dialogue, while others did not feel welcomed by school staff.

These efforts by the parents are based in part on their accumulated skills and experiences in living with their child, and partly in reaction to their concerns with the capacity of schools to include their children. In general, the parents conveyed a sense of apathy from educators about their skills in terms of strategies and their knowledge of appropriate resources.

Conclusion

Several parents spoke of some very positive experiences for their children this school year, showing that inclusion can happen and can be made to work satisfactorily. But there was also a range of frustration and anger with what parents perceived to be the incapacity of the school system to effectively educate their children over time, so that they felt they needed to be constantly vigilant in monitoring the experiences of their children in schools.

Data from this session and from the focus-group of parents in Coquitlam show many similarities in terms of what parents are saying, and the tone with which they speak. The parents in both focus groups are essentially making the same kinds of statements, which report mixed capacity to effectively include their children in schools’ learning and social activities, but with many examples of what they perceive to be failures in the system. The tone in which they spoke included resignation, frustration, and anger as they reflected on their struggle over years to advocate for their kids in what they see as a system often short on what the parents considered to be appropriate skills and attitudes. Yet when things work well for their children, they are also generous and acknowledging in their praise and recognition of the efforts of those teachers, AOs, and SEAs who have made things work.

Parents may also be identifying the ethical problem identified by teachers in earlier focus groups, though they are not stating the issue in the same terms. The parents spoke of what they perceived to be the increased reluctance of teachers to communicate with them this school year. This reluctance may stem from what teachers described as their concern that what was written in some IEPs may not always reflect the daily reality of a child’s program. If this is the case, then it may be one signal of schools under increasing strain to implement inclusion with fewer resources.

There seems to be a considerable “gap” between these parents and most educators who work in educational systems. The gap is reflected in uneasy communications, concerns about approaches, and what the parents see as a “we know best” attitude among many educators. Yet such a gap has been eroded or closed in some instances where educators have shown what the parents believe to be both interest and skill in including and educating their children. These instances speak of attitude and capacity, both crucial to effective inclusion.

Parents are also expressing considerable apprehension about the future of inclusion for their children, focusing in part on what they see as not an individual but a systemic failure of the education system. Some of their reflections clearly indicate that they believe that this government (and previous ones) fails to “put its money where its mouth is,” by adequately funding and supporting the inclusion of their children as the government’s policy claims to do.

Charlie Naylor
BCTF Research
April, 2003

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