Living the Speducator Dream

  Special Education Case Manager  Data Collection Systems "Special Education case manager" is synonymous with detail-oriented, paperwork, and organization systems. I'm sure there are some Type Bs among us, but in Special Ed, there are always SO MANY things to juggle. Many of them are paper-based or on a spreadsheet. Here I hope to share some of the data collection systems that I have developed over the last 19 years. While I'm always tweaking the systems, for the most part, they're pretty effective (and efficient!). IEP Goal Data Collection Academic Data For academic data, I use a Google sheets document. The master tab includes a caseload list with exceptionality, teacher, and related services. Then there are 3 other tabs for testing accommodations (district-wide, statewide, and WIDA), and each student has his/her own tab with their IEP goals. This document is shared among all paras, and this is where we record student data. We aim to collect one data point for ea...

  Transition Planning for High School Students with IEPs In the state of Washington, students must have a transition plan driving their IEP beginning no later than age 16 (or when determined by the IEP team, or when the student enters high school), through age 21. This is also the federal requirement. In Virginia, where I taught a few years ago, however, the age of transition planning is no later than 14. The big idea is that transition planning is not a process that only involves the school-based team. There should be family input, student input, and an interagency linkage. Across all of the states where I have lived and worked, there are many different agencies to which schools link families. 

 Beginning of Year Elementary Special Education Case Manager Checklist While no case manager's beginning of the year is the same, there is a checklist I use for myself to make sure I'm doing everything I need to before we start small groups - and to make sure general education teachers feel supported when new students start in their classrooms. There are so many areas we have to prepare - and it's not just setting up our room or planning for small group instruction. We have to review student IEPs/BIPs and other case management related tasks; we have to prepare our paraeducator team; create a small group master schedule (that somehow aligns to the building master schedule! 😅); give general education teachers information, materials, visuals, IEPs and BIPs at a Glance, while reviewing important accommodations; and finally, we have to prepare for small group instruction across content areas, like reading, writing, math, social skills, behavior, and adaptive. Whew! It's alw...

 Novel studies are a fantastic tool for elementary students in a resource/small group setting. For students who read below grade level, it may be the only time they have experienced reading and understanding a novel. Here are my tips for doing novel studies in small group: 1- My current district does trimesters for elementary, so I try to schedule one novel study per trimester for each grade level. Too much more than that and I feel it takes away from other skills we're working on, like fluency, reading curriculum, or IEP goal-specific skills. 2- I try to align grade level content or priority standards to the novel studies I select. We currently use CKLA (though only for another couple of years- and then I'll have to redo my small group pacing! 😭), so when 3rd grade is learning about the Vikings, we can do a novel study with Magic Tree House Viking Ships at Sunrise. Or when 4th grade uses details or examples to draw inferences from the text, The BFG lends itself to this stan...

  Writing Instruction Using a  Four Square Graphic Organizer My favorite graphic organizer to use when teaching my elementary students writing is the Four Square.  Here's why I like it: 1- It is ONE template they can use for narrative, informational/informative, and opinion writing. Their brains don't have to juggle "which template do I use for this style of writing?" For narrative, we write the exposition (character and setting) information in the middle box. Then for the "detail" and conclusion boxes, we write the progression of events, including rising action (detail 1), climax (detail 2), falling action (detail 3), and resolution (conclusion). For opinion, we write the opinion in the middle box, and then in the next 3 boxes, we write 3 reasons for our opinion, and then finally, the conclusion. For informational, we write our topic sentence in the middle, and then 3 supporting details, and then the conclusion. 2- It  can be used for words OR pictures! Thi...

REINFORCEMENT VS. BREAKS - PART 1 BREAKS Over time, I've heard well-meaning special educators confuse reinforcement with scheduled breaks with leisure breaks with heavy work breaks, with language used interchangeably. In my opinion, they aren't the same.  Students don't EARN breaks.  An effective special educator wouldn't take a break away from a student as a consequence. My hope is to explain how they are different so that special educators can then communicate clear expectations to students. Behavior modification will not happen if students don't understand expectations. Worse yet, students often don't trust adults who are not consistent in enforcing expectations. A caveat here is that these strategies are most easily implemented in an elementary or middle/high self-contained setting. It is possible for them to happen in resource with older students, but requires more coordination with school staff. Another caveat is the adult support required - like we have e...

  How lucky are you, getting to work with paraeducators?! In the world of special education, we can't do it alone. If you're lucky, you have one or more paraeducators who support you in teaching students. This may look like behavioral support, leading small groups, data collection, or pushing in to general education classrooms. BUT that's not to say that sometimes working with other adults can't be challenging. I always said I've learned a lot of things in my formal education, but "they" never taught me how to tell people my age or older what to do! Also, having paraeducator support is often something only special education teachers have - because our jobs are so complex! - so this may be another professional expectation that your general education friends don't quite understand. (All of this to say: I know some districts still have paraeducator support in elementary schools, but my current district does not. If your gen ed teachers have para support, ...

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU GOT A JOB! We've all been there. So excited! But also: so nervous! When I first started teaching, I had a bachelor's degree in psychology - not education. I wanted to be a school psychologist (funny how these paths have crossed!), but that didn't come to fruition. My mom was a teacher, and it had never occurred to me that I might be a teacher one day too. 😅 But finding myself out of college without a job, and finding that a local high school needed a special education teacher... The stars aligned, and 19 years later, here I am! It's funny how these things happen. Now, 2 degrees and 2 endorsements later (M.Ed. in General Special Education, Ed.S. in Educational Leadership, and endorsements in English to Speakers of Other Languages and Administration and Supervision), I would never want to do anything other than Special/Exceptional Education. It's also not lost on me that many people go into Special Education wanting to make a difference and becau...