Parents, teachers and specialists design and review education plans for special needs students
By: Michael Arges
Editor’s note: This is the third installment of a series on special education in the East Windsor Regional School District, examining the challenges and opportunities faced by the district and special education students.
Education experts say students learn best when their education is a cooperative effort involving not just teachers, but the students and parents as well.
That is even more important when teaching and evaluating students with special educational needs. Input and advocacy from parents are vital at all stages of evaluation and decision making, according to professionals who help with the planning of each special education child’s program of study.
"Parents are the best advocates for their children and very often they’re the first ones to have a sense that something isn’t OK," said Diane Collins, the new director of student services for the East Windsor Regional School District.
The magnitude and complexity of the evaluation process is evident in the example of Kreps Middle School.
There are about 175 students involved in special education programs at the Kreps School. Every student has an annual review of his or her Individualized Educational Program (IEP), the plan designed to meet the particular needs of the student – often through a combination of services such as speech therapy, occupational therapy, medical care, special education classes and others.
A student’s IEP may call for the student to be in a regular classroom with special support, or in a separate special education class. Or, it may be revised to call for the student to be sent to special schools.
When a student’s case is reviewed, the student’s "case manager" (a member of the school’s child study team), a parent, the special education teacher who most often works with the student, therapists who provide specialized help, and often a main stream teacher who is working with the child will be involved. Additional invitations to be involved go to "any other people who have direct involvement with the particular student," said Myrna Sunshine, a social worker at Kreps Middle School who helps evaluate and design programs for special education students.
"Sometimes there’s a family therapist who would like to be invited. Sometimes the parent has a particular friend or relative or advocate. We try to make it open to all the relevant people," Ms. Sunshine said.
On the middle and high school level, it is important that the student also be present – as well as the student’s guidance counselor, Ms. Sunshine added. She is one of the members of the child study team at Kreps, which also includes a psychologist and a learning specialist.
"At the Kreps School, we’ve had fantastic cooperation and participation from the parents," Ms. Sunshine said. There is involvement by "at least 90 percent of the parents."
Meeting participants review academic, social and personal development, including motivation, attendance, and any discipline issues.
Perhaps the student needs more structure and supervision. On the other hand, the group may decide the student is ready for more "main streaming" – more inclusion in regular classrooms and a decreasing reliance on special education.
One key to students’ success, Ms. Sunshine said, is "open communication" between the parent and teacher, and between the parent and the case manager, who will normally stay with the student while he or she is attending the school. Parents should take advantage of opportunities for face-to-face meetings, such as back-to-school receptions and parent-teacher conferences, she said. "But, certainly, any parent at any time can call and request a meeting." Such a request will be honored, because school professionals "want to make it work."
When students are first "classified" (identified as needing special education services), that decision is based on a variety of tests and evaluations, including social history, psychological evaluation and an educational evaluation. Every three years, a meeting between parents and the student’s main special education teacher determines whether or not there needs to be additional testing.
How does a student first become considered for special education?
The first initiative can come from the parent, from a therapist, from the child’s doctor, or from a school staff member.
For example, "a parent could be concerned about the child, and make a request to the child study team saying in a letter, ‘I’m concerned that my son isn’t making the progress that we would hope. Please evaluate him.’ When a parent makes a written request, the team must meet with the parent to determine whether or not an evaluation is warranted," Ms. Sunshine said. Such a meeting is required by the state code on special education.
"There may be other interventions that could be put into place instead of jumping to evaluation and classification. In fact, the state prefers that we look at other ways to help the student besides testing, evaluation and special education programs," Ms. Sunshine added. "We like to think that classification is not the first thing that you do. It’s when the main stream has not been successful with all of the interventions that we have available.
"Our goal always is to have the students participate in the main stream as much as possible, and to continuously look at different ways in which the main stream can reach more students. I don’t like to think of special education as the answer. I like to think of it as one of the options." Ms. Sunshine said.
"The overwhelming majority" of classified students, she said, have "specific learning disabilities as a classification. Usually it will be a significant difficulty with reading, writing or math. That’s the most common reason that students are receiving special education services."
However, learning disabilities "vary tremendously. Some students can be absolutely strong in reading and writing, for instance, and have an extreme difficulty with math," she added. "Part of the evaluation is to determine where the students need the help, so that they’re only given the help they need. So that it’s tailored individually."
In addition to learning disabilities, students may be classified for medical reasons, emotional reasons, hearing impairment, visual impairment and autism, said Diane Collins, the new director of student services for the East Windsor Regional School District.
The importance of parental involvement is evident in the success stories, according to Don Radko, a school psychologist who has been serving on the child study teams for both Walter C. Black and Ethel McKnight primary schools. He notes, for example, that several students have overcome many of the negative effects of autism. But these success stories have come "with the parents and school board working together very hard."