Hi!
I am so excited to get to work with you this year as we figure out how to best support all our students! I wanted to reach out to you about what it looks like to work together this year to insure all students are included, honored and thoughtfully served. Here are my thoughts and I would love to hear yours!
Special education is a service not a place. Let’s be teammates!
Me and you—we are part of a really cool educational team that surrounds each student. It’s our job to make sure that students who need extra support receive the most appropriate, least-restrictive support across all settings. Students who qualify for my services are your students who receive specialized support from our specialized team. It’s important that we don’t mentally or physically separate kids into categories or classrooms according to ability level or behavior. We must rigorously maintain the right of all students to be equally included and the belief that the whole group suffers from the exclusion of one.
I’d love to learn how you are teaching that concept.
You’re an expert at teaching your content. As students travel back and forth between support systems, I want to make sure I am teaching concepts in the same evidence-based way you are in hopes of maintaining a cohesive, streamline education. I want students to know that high expectations are expected of them across all settings!
Model for your students how to interact with kids who are different than them.
From my experience, students will react to behavior how they see us react. If we value empathy, high expectations, meaningful inclusion and authentic friendships, so will our students!
All behavior makes sense in context.
Behavior can be confusing out of context. Aggressive behavior can cause us to respond emotionally and can feel scary. If you see this with any of our shared students, please come to me privately and I will help give you context and ideas of how to best respond according to each student’s individualized behavior plan.
Give me feedback on how it’s going.
I want our shared student to be successful! If he/she needs more or less support, I want to give it to him/her. If something just doesn’t feel like it’s “working”, let me know! We can problem solve together. Remember, the goal for each is the most independence possible while maintaining those high expectations!
What are Paras supposed to do?
When they are in your classroom, my para’s role is to support our student’s independence, facilitate play and meaningful friendships and follow each students data-driven behavior and educational plan. If they have time and space, they may help with other students in your class, but our shared student is their first priority. If you have a question about a student, I’m sure they are always willing to help, but be sure to come to me too
Allow all students equal opportunities.
Make sure to ask our shared students questions, call on them for answers, include them in groups, give them an assigned place to sit and put their stuff. Make sure they are invited to any special or extra activities. If they aren’t following a classroom expectation, let them know!
Noise can be disruptive, but it can also teach kids how to be flexible.
Disruptions in class can be frustrating and, well, disruptive! There are many reasons why a student may be making excess noise in your classroom. They may have sensory needs that are not being met. They could have a gap in their skill set and not yet know how to raise their hand to get attention from their teacher. They may not be able to read context clues from those around them and may need explicit instruction on classroom expectations. Whatever it may be, let’s give students the benefit of the doubt, teach and reteach expectations, and model to all students that differences are what make the world an interesting and beautiful place.