Program allows special needs students to remain in general ed. classes
BY SANDI CARPELLO
Staff Writer
RED BANK — The days of special education students being separated from the general population in borough schools are past.
The Co-Teachers Program, which was implemented in the borough’s primary and middle schools this year, allows students with nonsevere learning disabilities to participate in regular curriculum classes while receiving specialized assistance from a second teacher.
"And I’m not talking about teacher’s aides," said district curriculum supervisor Elizabeth Keshush. "There are two or three certified teachers in the classroom at one time. The teachers work together, plan together and they are there for all the children. They interact and work with everyone, but they make special accommodations for students with disabilities."
Those accommodations, geared mostly toward students with perceptual, auditory or behavioral disabilities, may include giving special needs students a simpler test, access to the class computer or a more detailed explanation of a particular lesson.
"These kids know what their disabilities are so they’ll just raise their hand and say, ‘I need an accommodation,’ " Keshush said.
According to Keshush, the traditional one-room, one-teacher learning method was detrimental to the social progress of students with learning disabilities.
"If you segregate these students, they don’t get the same benefits as everyone else," she said.
"If you keep them in one room all day with the same three students — especially in the upper grades when the other kids are switching classes — they get bored and they start [fighting] with each other."
The co-teaching model is being used to combine regular education with ESL/bilingual education and "gifted and talented" educational programs.
"About 50 teachers in the district are co-teaching at one time or another," Keshush said.
Fourteen classes at the middle school and eight at the primary school have co-teachers at one time or another, she said.
District teachers are undergoing workshops to master the co-teaching method. The key concepts of co-teaching are partnership and an equal sharing of planning, instruction and assessment.
Participants are learning to work cooperatively to break down the territorial barriers and share responsibilities, Keshush said.