Learn Your Special Education Laws, Special Education Rights, and Share IEP Goal Ideas

The success of school aged children within their home, school, community and academic lives is a function of their education. My goal is to create a safe, appropriate learning environment for the students I teach. Facilitation of learning pre-language, language, pre-academic, academic, and life or adaptive living skills is essential to their achievement. It is my belief that all children should and are capable of maintaining and progressing in academic and functional life skills at home, school and in their community.

When school encompasses children’s lives for almost as much time as an adult’s employment, one could surmise that school is their equivalent of work. Therefore, those experiences are a large portion of how children learn to “live and cope in society”, just as work experiences affect adults’ lives.

Per progressivism, learned behavior comes from observing and having experiences that have meaning. Encouraging learning theory while incorporating a hands on approach increases the amount of meaning and applicability to students’ lives. Read the rest of this entry →

If your child with special needs has been mainstreamed or fully included in a general education classroom, it is important that you communicate openly and honestly with the teacher about your child’s needs.

While special education teachers and outside agencies will meet with your child’s classroom teacher to share information, these meetings can often be brief, delayed, or worse yet, cancelled until further notice.

Therefore, It is necessary for you to monitor the information that is shared between your child’s teacher(s) and the support personnel, and then fill in any gaps. Between you and your child’s school, here are the top ten things that the classroom teacher needs to know about your child’s special needs: Read the rest of this entry →

We all know it takes a village to raise a child and to make sure that child receives a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE); the two most important components in making that happen are the parents and the school.  In order to do that, everyone needs to do be responsible for their role in educating that child as well as work together to address all their areas of need.  I know it’s not an easy task to accomplish; however, the student will have a better opportunity to receive FAPE if both parties work together instead of spending their time working against each other.  Here are some tips that might help to achieve a good working relationship between parents and schools. Read the rest of this entry →

Special Education in America has come very far in the 30 plus years since the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed.  The problem is somewhere along the way the spirit of the law and the practice of the law started to breakdown.  The cornerstone of the special education law is the Individualized Education Program (IEP) and decisions about the IEP are decided at an IEP team meeting.  The IEP becomes useless if the IEP team meeting goes off task.  Unfortunately, instead of a team, often it becomes parents against the school and a massive communication breakdown occurs.  There can be a significant lack of trust on both sides.  Many times I hear from School personnel, “Why don’t parents think we are capable of assessing their children properly?”  While on the other side parents think schools are turning them down for eligibility and services due to lack of funds when their children really need help. Read the rest of this entry →

The Government:  The foundation of today’s special education law was passed in 1975 and enacted in 1977.  This was Public Law 94-142, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (EHA).  This law eventually became the Individual’s with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) we know today.  While the Federal Government has required School’s to provide a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) to children with disabilities for over 35 years they have never provided schools the funding they need to accomplish this.  Congress had originally promised to fund 40 percent of the National Average per Pupil Expenditure for every child in special education.  In reality, Congress has never funded even close to 40% and has averaged in the 17% range.  Without this funding the Schools have limited resources available to them to educate all children. Read the rest of this entry →

First semester is almost over and many of you have children who will be moving on to elementary, middle school, high school or college next school year.  I’m sure you are already asking yourselves “what is the right school for my child?”  We went through this last year knowing my son was going to middle school this year, so I know how stressful this subject can be.  You might already be researching schools in your district, specifically looking at what is considered a good school in your neighborhood.  I’m sure you have friends that have given you advice on what they feel is a good school as well.  The question is; “is it the right school for a child with an IEP?” Read the rest of this entry →

It’s the moment every parent dreads: when your child sits there, glum-faced, looking at a blank piece of paper in front of them.  They have a rapidly-approaching deadline for their essay, and nothing, but nothing you do as a parent seems to help them get any closer to completion.  What can you do to help?  The answer is: quite a lot.

Producing a successful essay can be one of the most arduous parts of the schooling process, and yet, the need to write an essay is everywhere: from English literature, to economics, to physics, geography, classical studies, music, and history.  To succeed, at high school and in tertiary study you must master essay writing.

Getting students over this barrier was one of the reasons I put pen to paper four years ago and produced a book called Write That Essay!  At that stage, I was a senior academic at Auckland University and a university examiner.  For nearly 20 years, in both course work and examinations, I had counselled everyone from 17-year-old ‘newbies’ to 40-year-old career changers with their essay writing.  Often, the difference between a student who might achieve a B-Grade and the A-Grade student was just some well-placed advice and direction.

I then visited over 50 New Zealand High Schools and spoke with over 8000 kiwi kids about essay writing.  These students reported exactly the same challenges as I had previously encountered, and more.  The result has been two books and a DVD that have helped kids achieve some of the potential that sits inside all of us.

In this article I am going to deal with some things you can do as a parent to help your child succeed at essay writing.  If you’d like more detailed advice, drop in on my website www.writethatessay.org or grab a copy of the books.  Because writing great essays is well within every child’s grasp.

Tips for essay writing success:

1.  It’s an argument

Remember that an essay is an argument: the task in an essay is not to write a story or to recount a plot.  The teacher knows all of this information.  In an essay your child’s job is to present a compelling argument—using specific evidence—for the point they are trying to make.

2.  Write a plan: you’ll be pleased that you did

Get your child to write a brief list-plan of the topics that their essay needs to cover.  Even a short plan is better than no plan at all, and will start to give the writer a feeling that completing an essay on that topic is well within their grasp.

If your child is a visual learner, move away from the desk and go to a neutral space.  Grab a large sheet of blank A3 paper and some coloured pens, and brainstorm a mind map or sketch plan of what the essay should contain.  Using pictures, lines, circles, and arrows will all help the visual learner grasp the task at hand and help them see what they have to do.

3.  Getting Started

A challenge many kids (and adults) face writing essays is getting started.  The person sits there waiting for inspiration to hit them like a lightening bolt and it never happens.  What can you as a parent do to help?

Encourage them with the thought that great essays are never written the first time over.  Get them to view essay writing as a three-part process.  The first draft is only to get out the ideas and words in rough form.  In the second and third effort, they will add to their essay where there are blanks, clarify ideas, and give it a final polish.  Realising that an essay isn’t supposed to be perfect the first time you write it, really helps some people.

4.  Having enough to say

If your child is still stuck, find out if they have read up enough on the topic.  Some inertia with writing can be due to lack of knowledge.  They will find writing so much easier if they spend another day or two reading more on the topic and gleaning some additional ideas.

5.  Try using a neutral sentence

Suggest starting the essay with a neutral sentence: a sentence that merely states an interesting fact on the topic being written about.  Here’s one: ‘Mozart was one of the most important Austrian composers of the eighteenth century.’  First sentences in essays don’t need to be stellar – you just need to start!

Now, go write that essay!

About the Author: Ian Hunter is a former Associate Professor at Auckland University and has been a leading New Zealand academic for 20 years.  He is the author of over 50 publications, including a dozen books, and his work on education, innovation, business history, and entrepreneurship has been published internationally.  He is a regular conference speaker and media commentator and lives in Auckland with his wife Debra and their five children.  In 2010 he stepped aside from university life to concentrate full-time on writing and publishing. Visit www.writethatessay.org for more essay writing material.

Titles available in this series:

To belong, to fit in, to be suitable, to be appropriate or to be a member of a club, organization, or set; this is what we all want for our children.  So nothing hurts worse than when your child’s Teacher tells you, “Your child doesn’t belong in my classroom.”  What you hear as a parent is a statement of your child’s failings.  What I hear is an admission of a denial of a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) for your child.  Let me give you a few examples of what you are not hearing but is implied in this statement:

1. Your child doesn’t belong in my classroom because the school will not provide the appropriate aides and supports necessary to educate your child;
2. Your child doesn’t belong in my classroom because I am not capable of educating your child;
3. Your child doesn’t belong in my classroom because I don’t want to take the time to differentiate my instruction and find the method that your child learns;
4. Your child doesn’t belong in my classroom because the District has increased my class size to 45 students and has not provided me with a paraprofessional to help lessen my load;
5. Your child doesn’t belong in my classroom because I don’t want to follow his IEP because it takes too much time and energy;
6. Your child doesn’t belong in my classroom because the School District refuses to spend money on children with special needs; and
7. Your child doesn’t belong in my classroom because I am a bad teacher.

The last example I want to explain, because I realize that I may have angered many educators.  Just like every profession there are a few who are great at what they do, a few that are awful at what they do and many that are somewhere in between.  Teaching is no exception and if you have uttered the phrase, “Your child doesn’t belong in my class,” you land solidly on the far left of the bell curve in the well below average category of Teaching.  Even if you made this statement due to constraints caused by the School District, this statement is not acceptable.  We all have the right to belong, and we also all have the right to be educated.  This doesn’t mean I believe every child should be educated in a mainstream class; inevitably, many school districts will not provide the necessary supports needed for inclusion to be successful.  I do however feel that every child deserves to be respected and to tell them or their parents they “don’t belong” is not appropriate.

About a month ago I went to my son’s back to school night.  This is his first year in Middle School so we spent about 5 to 10 minutes in each class.  The second class I went into was his social studies room and the Teacher started her discussion by stating, “I am going to set the bar really high this year for every student.  I don’t care that this isn’t my honors class I am going to set the bar high and every single student WILL move higher than they thought they could.  They might not all make it to the top but I will take them ALL as high as they can go.”  She then read this poem:

She then walked us through the various methods she uses to teach including visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic.  To determine how each of her students learn she conducted a learning style assessment on the first day of school and used those results to modify her teaching style.  If you haven’t realized it yet this Teacher lands on the far right of the bell curve in the well above average category for Teaching.

The morale of this little exercise is that there are good teachers and bad teachers, good school districts and bad school districts.  So, if your child’s Teacher tells you, “Your child doesn’t belong in my class,” it’s time to find a new placement.  It’s time to find a new placement not because your child doesn’t belong but because your child deserves better.  Your child deserves a Teacher like my son’s social studies Teacher who is going to push them and help them fly.

Wow….it’s only been a little over a month since my son began middle school but it feels like it’s been much longer!  So many changes and new challenges my son had to deal with; actually, we as a family had to address.  Before I begin, I must tell you that this is the first time my son is in general education without having access to an aide in the classroom to ask for help; he’s doing it all by himself now.

One of the first challenges was preparing my son to use a combination locker.  The week before school started, I went out to dinner with a close friend of mine who has a son that was also beginning middle school.  I told her I was concerned about my son being able to use a combination lock at school because of his fine motor and processing issues.  My friend told me that she bought a combination lock at the store so her son could practice before school starts….what a brilliant idea!  Of course we immediately bought a lock and made my son practice using it every day before school began; I highly recommend this to parents to alleviate any anxieties your child may have using a combination lock, it was a great help!  When the day came and he received his locker combination, he was able to turn the dial with ease; however, since it was a brand new school, the latches didn’t work well because they were too stiff.  You know how we are as parents, the very next day my husband went to his locker and applied WD40 to the latch……anything to make it as easy as possible for our kid! Read the rest of this entry →

Three Key Components of a Healthy Classroom

My first year teaching was one of the hardest things I have ever gone through. I took more college classes than I could count and was determined to make myself a successful teacher, but what I discovered is that to be a successful teacher, I had to have a successful classroom. I have reflected upon my years of teaching and all of my education and have composed a short list of what a successful classroom looks like; a passionate and purpose-driven teacher, an active and collaborative classroom, and a sense of community. Pretty simple, right? Now that I reflect it seems so, but I have had a lot of trial and error along the way. Let me quickly discuss the three aspects of a successful classroom and include some ideas with you…

A Passionate and Purpose-Driven Teacher:

Being a passionate and purpose-driven teacher is the first key to making a classroom successful. I started my teaching career young and I initially wanted to get into teaching because I thought I was “good with kids” and I could picture myself teaching. What I found was that teaching was not for wimps! I found that it was not a seven-hour day filled with going from lesson to lesson. I realized that I had to have purpose in every activity and every step I took. I needed to be passionate about what I was teaching; otherwise my students would not be either. If I can share anything with you on this area is to be mindful of your attitude as a teacher. Do things on purpose and avoid giving students work to fill time. Be enthusiastic about teaching and learning. Share with students any personal struggles you had with learning a particular subject area, but also include how you overcame it. Encourage them, inspire them, and be consistent with them.

Active and Collaborative Classroom:

I cannot stress the impact that an active and collaborative classroom has on teaching and learning really has.  So many times (and I have been guilty myself) teachers get stuck in a routine or want to be a “Sage on the Stage” teacher. Many times we teach the way we were taught, but I can tell you from experience, it does not always work. While I agree lecture has a time and a place, it needs to be used in moderation. We really need to focus on our students and get them engaged in the learning so that the learning is meaningful.  Further, I have a personal preference to collaborative learning. In fact, this was the reason I wrote my dissertation on it. I watched time and time again how my students enjoyed collaborative learning and how they retained the information so much better.  From my experience, I would encourage you to have fun in your class. Play meaningful games, create activities that foster growth, and laugh. It does take time to do these, but I promise the payoff is great.

Sense of Community:

This term was drilled into me while I was in my doctoral program and I really adopted it because I found the true importance of it. Having a sense of community in the classroom takes out a lot of drama and biases and allows students and the teacher to be a team.  One thing I found that helps establish a community is to do some fun activities in the class so that everyone can get to know one another. These can be short ice-breaker type activities or just a rapid-fire activity where the teacher asks the students what they did over the weekend, their favorite piece of candy, thoughts on the last activity, etc. It is equally important for the teacher to participate. I know many teachers do this on the first day of class, but I recommend that these are done regularly. As your students get to know one another, they begin to build relationships. As those relationships grow, so does their comfort level. When students are comfortable, they can relax, ask questions, and learn without fear of embarrassment or any other possible insecurities.

Dr. Jessica Alvarado is an Assistant Professor at Ashford University where she is the program chair of the child development program. She has a true passion for education and hopes to continue to inspire her students in the years to come!