What is a Good Teacher Worth? March 25, 2010
Posted by Daniel Dage in Backstory, IEP, IEPs, Special Ed., Special Education, Teachers.comments closed
I have been up to my elbows and eyeballs in annual reviews. I’m doing a bunch of my own this week, as well as acting as LEA for several others. Some teachers have reviews that go smoothly and amazing well. Some need a bit of help. And some are absolute disasters. It is this last category that results in headaches for everyone and unfortunately it happens all too often. There are many reasons why an annual review can go poorly, but I find the single biggest factor is in preparation. The more preparation, the better the meeting goes. The less preparation, the worse it goes.
The most hideous meetings I ever attended was at a middle school. I was the high school representative and drove half way across the county to get there. Once I got there, I had to wait nearly an hour because other meetings were running late. Fortunately the parent was not there, as the teacher was anxious to postpone which I thumbed down. I made her call the parent and get permission to hold it, which the parent was happy to do. Then the IEP was not filled out. We had to bang it all out there. Oy. Or another middle school meeting where I arrived, and the parent and itinerants and everyone was there except the caseload teacher. Where was she? In her classroom trying to type the goals and other parts, thus making us all wait. Or, yet another middle school meeting where I was late because the one I was attending across the hall ran late. When I walked into the crowded room, the parents were visibly fuming and the tension was so thick everyone was about ready to suffocate. This was because the teacher had made some careless comment and now the parents were loaded for bear.
In each of these situations, even though none of these were my students and this was not even my school or my meeting, I managed to help salvage the situation from potential disaster. Even the middle school LEAs and graduation coaches seemed at a loss as to how to handle these situations. In the first case, we were able to bang out the IEP in about an hour once I overcame the team’s reluctance. It was the last meeting of the day and everyone wanted to go home. But my general rule is the death is about the only reason to postpone…or an attorney, which is practically the same as death. It takes an enormous amount of coordination to get all the players in the same room at the same time. Don’t blow it. In the second instance, I got the teacher to just print out what she had plus the previous year’s IEP….after problems with the printer. This is why waiting until the last minute courts disaster, and Murphy WILL move in and take up residence. In the final case, I discovered there were things in the IEP that were negotiable enough for the parents that they could walk out less mad. They still did not like that teacher, but at least felt better about high school transition.
An IEP is often treated like a court case just waiting to happen. And it is not a bad idea to view it as such when writing one. But you can not become so paralyzed with fear that you end up avoiding it. It must be done, so you might as well grab it and run with vigor to get it done. It is daunting but not impossible to write a decent IEP that will serve the student well without causing either the school or the parents to feel like they have been robbed. I have suggestions right here in my blog that might be useful for both parents and teachers.
This is one field where experience really does count as long as it is good experience. Someone who can write a proper, legal IEP can save the school thousands in litigation costs. A teacher who knows how to talk to parents without ticking them off can save an administrator countless headaches. A competent teacher who can actually teach the students can help the school meet its goals and the all important AYP. I have seen all too often what happens when a teacher is incompetent. People get frustrated, corners are cut and then parents are ready to go to an attorney.
An experienced, competent teacher is also more likely to stick around, as long as minimum efforts are made to retain him/her. I’ll talk about retention in a future post, but experience does help endure future obstacles and deteriorating conditions at least up to a point. I was able to handle a caseload larger than any other SID/PID teacher in the county with less help than any other teacher by virtue of my experience and tenacious commitment to NOT allow anything to happen that would endanger the students. Over time I developed experience enough to keep little things from turning into big things and when a big problem came along I learned how to handle a fair number of those. And finally, I learned to recognize when something was too big for me to handle and that I needed to ask for assistance fro m people paid to handle the bigger problems. Those are all skills that you can learn only through experience. In special education, there are a ton of judgment calls that we are called on to make because there is not a set textbook way of handling our students. That is what makes it “special!”
Achievements: Getting the Lame to Walk March 19, 2010
Posted by Daniel Dage in Alternate Assessment, Curriculum, Ed Policy Discussion, moving on, NCLB, severe disabilities, Special Ed., Special Education.Tags: wheelchairs
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I know I have sometimes gotten down and negative here, as I often use this as my own personal forum to vent various frustrations. But this is also a good place to tell about stuff I’ve accomplished to any would-be future employers out there who are looking for a special education teacher. Remember, I AM HQ!
I had a student who came to me in a wheelchair. This is not unusual, since most of my students nowadays seem to be in wheelchairs. However this little guy was different because he could, in fact, walk. He had an irregular gait due to his particular syndrome, but he could walk and get around pretty well. And that was kind of the problem. He was getting around TOO well. And he would get into everything and destroy whatever he got his hands on. He was all hands and all active. And he knew how to drive his chair probably better than he could walk. So containing him and keeping him out of trouble involved finding some elaborate way of blocking the wheelchair up so he couldn’t move it. This was easier said than done as he was also fairly clever and persistent. The wheelchair was basically used by everyone as a restraint device. Keep in mind, he was seen as unmanageable all the way through middle school.
And within 2 years, I got the boy to a place where he could be put just about anywhere and he would basically stay put. He would still occasionally want to wander off, but he was easily redirected. He went from being my most unmanageable challenge to being one of my best behaved students. And he no longer needs or uses the wheelchair. Not at school, not on the bus and not at home.
I’m not going to get into all the behavioral techniques used to getting him to that place. I will just say that perseverance and determination were major factors toward getting him where he is today. I’m not to proud to say that when he first came to me, I didn’t want him in my room. I thought we were already overcrowded and understaffed. Haha! Little did I know what was to come! But I had no choice but to bite the bullet and dig in and teach this student how to conduct himself in a classroom without wrecking the place. He will still wreck things if he gets his hands on them, but I have little toys and things he can use to keep his hands busy. He’s still very active, but he can be active in his own space. While there are still a whole lot of things he can not do, he can now be maintained without his wheelchair. This is a relief for his family who previously had to cart the thing around everywhere they took him. It is less bother for the bus, as they no longer have to mess with the lift.
And I would be remiss if I did not mention that this accomplishment in no way affected the school’s test scores, graduation rate or AYP. At no time did teaching him how to control himself address a state academic standard. And there is no part of the Georgia High School Graduation Test that measures whether or not a student requires a wheelchair. None of this will appear on the Georgia Alternate Assessment. I took time out from academic instruction in order to address this students needs, which pretty much violates whatever tenets are set by NCLB. There is no way to align the goal of not needing a wheelchair to any state standard. And it also was not explicitly stated as a goal in his IEP. Our beloved governor has not offered any merit pay to teachers who can get a child to not need a wheelchair anymore. There are no incentives offered by the state of Georgia to recruit or retain people that can do this. There is nothing on any evaluation instrument for teachers that says this is even a worthwhile activity.
Despite several who told me this endeavor was a waste of time, I did it anyway. And while I have no test scores, enhanced pay, accolades, awards, or anything from other people that says this is at all important, I do have an empty wheelchair in the corner that has not been used in a very, very long time, except to hold a coat or a bag. And I have the audacity to feel pretty good about that!
Lots of my fellow teachers do stuff like this all the time and we don’t talk about, because it doesn’t address a state standard. It isn’t recognized or rewarded because it doesn’t result in a college scholarship. And this student can’t give me a recommendation to an employer because he can not read, write or talk. But he can walk, which is how he gets around now because he does not need a chair to restrain him. He has learned to control himself to some degree.
The story of this student is not over, as he continues to progress. He has a long way to go, and I hope he continues to progress. But it will have to be with someone else. Perhaps there are other students in other schools that need to learn self control. It would save some poor high school teacher’s hair if more kids could learn that skill in middle school. And that is sort of where I’m aiming at the moment. I would like to get into a smaller community and with a younger set in order to see if I can apply some of this experience earlier on.
