info@thehellofoundation.
com
FREE
PY
HARDCO LE
AVAILAB
share)
to
(we love
7 Best Practices: Lessons Learned From
The Best Special Education Programs
by Sharon Soliday
The Hello Foundation CEO
This exerpt is Chapter 4 Collaboration.
The best programs support and
COLLABORATION
encourage specialists and teachers to
collaborate outside of the school
walls. For a hardcopy please contact us:
[email protected]Thank you.
COLLABORATION
PRACTICE #4
The best programs support and
encourage specialists and teachers to
collaborate outside of the school walls.
In an era when classroom walls are virtually melting away
and students collaborate with other students in classrooms around
the world, traditional thinking still expects specialists to be capable
of all problem solving confined within a schools walls. Specialists
perpetuate this idea by limiting their efforts to the short-term
demands of a buildings caseload.
In reality, the complexity of students within special
education continues to increase each year. Simultaneously, insights
regarding medical challenges, consequences of adverse childhood
experiences, and knowledge of evidence-based practices offer a
plethora of reasons specialists should be collaborating beyond school
walls. And yet, there is often little discussion between administrators
and specialists about students needs.
For example, medically fragile students may benefit from
medical staff, teachers, and specialists consulting together at
appointments or in clinical settings.
Students with autism are complex, and families often have
their own developmental pediatricians, nutritionists, behavior
specialists, private speech therapists, occupational therapists,
counselors, tutors, and case managers. School-based specialists may
benefit tremendously by coordinating care and interventions among
providers.
Many districts believe its not the responsibility of schools to
affiliate with outside providers. However, although collaboration can
be time-comsuning, it can provide more efficient service for students
in the long run. The schools are not responsible to provide the
absolute best service possible, but that shouldnt rule out providing
collaborative service.
BARRIERS TO THIS APPROACH, AND HOW THE BEST
PROGRAMS RESPOND:
Specialists arent allowed to leave
their building because it isnt fair
to the rest of the staff.
Fundamentally, being fair is not the same as treating
everyone the same way. Being fair is providing each student what
he or she needs to be successful in class. If a child with a hearing
impairment benefits from sitting at the front of the class, would the
teacher or building staff consider that to be unfair? Typically not.
So, whats the difference between that and allowing a specialist time
to consult with an off-site audiologist regarding a childs hearing
challenges?
Reaching out to professionals better equipped to translate
a childs needs is our responsibility, and it could be argued that the
teacher should be included in such a consultation. This is far from
Cadillac service.
The district has a responsibility to provide quality service to
a student, and if an intervention effort is outside the scope of practice
for a specialist, she has a responsibility to say so.
The cry of fairness can be a barometer of much larger
concerns among staff, and it should be explored immediately. Special
education is fundamentally about differentiating instruction and
providing unique teaching based on a students needs. Teachers
shouldnt view it as a threat when a specialist is allowed to leave
a building to consult with a medical professional for a student
transitioning from a medical environment to the school environment.
In some cases, teachers echo concerns of fairness due to poor
translation of information or impact to the classroom. If a specialist
requires time outside of a building to become better educated about
how to help a student, the specialist must have time to educate the
teacher as to what he or she has learned. Too often, well-intended
staff gather important information but do little with it once they
return to the building. This is no better than working in isolation.
Though one person may now be doing better work in isolation, the
student may not demonstrate growth across school settings.
Seeking additional information about a student thrusts
building specialists into the role of consultants. However, the
specialist is not the kind of consultant who appears a few times
during the year to share a suggestion that has helped similar
students. Rather, the specialist-as-consultant must be a translator,
responsible for interpreting a students needs and implementing
correct interventions across school settings.
Information gained by consultations
should be shared and translated
with classroom teachers.
Specialists who are allowed to leave
their building are not subject to
accountability; away from the building,
they are not actually doing their job.
and
Specialists might abuse the privilege.
These concerns are not really about a specialist reaching
outside the building for assistance. Rather, they are camouflaged
concerns about management. These objections originate somewhere
within the culture of a department or a district. Staff may be
articulating reservations because 1) they dont understand or havent
experienced what is to be gained or 2) they require more support
within the classroom regarding these particular students.
To address these questions within the context of procedures,
administrative leaders can develop and share clear policy practices
that all staff are expected to follow. The how, when, and why
guidelines would be outlined within these policy materials.
To make sure all staff understand what is to be gained,
specialists should document the information or techniques they have
gained in their outside consultations. More importantly, they should
close the procedural circle by identifying how this information will
be shared and translated with classroom teachers.
To address the potential frustration that teachers may feel
at the class level, team meetings should occur to problem-solve
throughout the year. Too often, districts have a set practice of two
or three problem-solving strategies (more aide time in the class,
changing a students schedule, lowering expectations, lowering
demands). If appropriate supports are not addressed, challenged
staff can become frustrated with other team members. Once this
occurs, the needs of students tend to drop away from the top of any
agenda.
Students are expected to benefit from
special-education services,
but the district is not obligated to provide
the best Cadillac service available.
True or False? District programs are successful outlining
appropriate and adequate service in contrast to Cadillac service.
False.
True or False? Specialists are comfortable and successful
defining appropriate and adequate service in contrast to
Cadillac service for their own efforts with students.
False.
What school district leadership strives to be just good
enough? Who goes to graduate school intending to provide less
than their best effort for the benefit of students? Few specialists leave
work at the end of the day content that they have provided good
enough service.
The litmus test for adequate service is that students
demonstrate growth within their general-education setting. But how
much growth is adequate? What about students with long plateaus
prior to periods of growth?
Just as students require individualized help, answers to
these questions are dependent on the individual. Our current
inability to define the specific parameters by which we are judged
should not result in all outside consultation or observations being
considered to be superior, over-the-top service.
Admittedly, some specialists will translate far more from
their outside consultations than others. But that simply means
educational leadership has an opportunity to assist someone in his
or her professional development. It shouldnt mean they dont get to
ask questions or explore better options for students.
Ask these questions.
Listen.
Make a plan.
Lead.
This is a great team building exercise.
It will reveal best practices for
your team to support and encourage
specialists and teachers to collaborate
outside of the school walls.
COLLABORATION
APPLYING
TO YOUR
DISTRICT
#1 What outside supports do your specialists need to
ensure competencies to serve all students?
#2 Do your specialists feel work is a safe environment
to request the additional supports they may need to
adequately serve students?
#3 What additional resources can your specialists
utilize without significant cost to the district?
#4 How do you include parents?
#5 When is the most effective time to share news of
these efforts with other staff, in order to ensure strong
department-wide communication?
The Hello There Approach
The Hello Foundation utilizes a hybrid service model, with
specialists onsite for a part of each month and off-site for a part of
each month. We utilize technology to supervise assistants, provide
direct instruction to students and to collaborate with stakeholders
when off-site. Referred to as our Hello There Approach, this service
model is not intended to be the only best practice integrating
technology and quality service practices. The best special-education
programs will devise service models for their settings based on their
own objectives for student achievement and success. But are we
proud of it? Absolutely . . . it puts kids first.
F OUNDATI ON
www.TheHelloFoundation.com
92
Cheat Sheet
PUT
KIDS
FIRST
DISMISS
EDUCATIONAL
IMPACT
Define what this means for you and your team. Identify who or what then
may come in 2nd or 3rd. What effort would have the largest cascading
impact?
How long should students be receiving direct service? Do our best intentions
hold students back? How to we transfer skills and strategies to general
education settings? How do we measure that effort?
How do we guide teams to weigh educational impact of a disability? What
accommodations to our criteria are flexible to support individual building/
team/student needs? How do we explain this concept to parents?
COLLABORATION
What is our expectation of special educators and specialists to communicate
with general education teachers? How do we model the value of
collaboration. How do we make it easy? How do we make it difficult?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
What staff behavior do you want to see repeated? How do you reward it
when it occurs? When have you gotten staff recognition right? When did you
miss an opportunity?
DISCUSS
EXPECTATIONS
If were not in the business of curing students, when is enough help
. . enough? How fast should we be anticipating change? If plans are
individually designed, are our teachers rewarded for setting and achieving
individually designed expectations?
How do we define quality? What changes/investments do we make for the
benefit of quality service? Do we provide a fluid choice of service models for
the benefit of students?
