| Facilitator: Jackie Bullock |
|
|
|
| Betty Krumboltz |
Chris Regalia |
Andrea Shagory |
|
| Linda Hereshoff |
Sue Pound |
Jerry Johnson |
|
| Kirsten Missett |
Marti Jacobs |
Cathy Mueller-Ott |
|
Wednesday September 3, 2003
We have improved the the Special Education Department's internal
climate
through our bonding and teamwork over the last two years of operation
and
meetings with both special education and regular education staff
members.
We are still awaiting suggestions from the staff at large and we
are
installing a new suggestion box which will be placed in the guidance
office to facilitate this.
We are planning to present during one of our Wednesday staff meetings.
The topic will be an overall introduction to the Special Education
service
delivery models and referral process at Jordan.
We will hopefully present a mock SST at that same staff meeting
and the
participants or actors will be our own TF members.
Stay tuned!
Friday August 23, 2002
SPECIAL EDUCATION JORDAN TASK FORCE UPDATE
Members met and a lot of progress was made. Here our some outcomes
of our decision-making efforts regarding how to improve Special
Education at Jordan and how they each relate and support the goals
and focus of the Site Council plan. This task force has reached
it's own goals.
In the area of scheduling we made some improvements to procedures
of scheduling students so that classes would be evenly distributed
with regular and special education pupils. We did work closely with
administration to make this even distribution of students happen
before school began. We made efforts to have teachers notified ahead
of time as to which students placed in mainstream classes had IEP's
and who their case managers were. We distributed sample Communication
Forms to the special education teachers to use to communicate to
regular ed. teachers the strengths, weaknesses, and teaching tips
for each child placed in every mainstream class. We also distributed
sample Teacher Acknowledgement of Notification Forms to ensure parents
that the regular education teacher knew the needs and modifications
needed to ensure student success. This form would be filled out
by those teachers and sent home for parent signatures. This would
build community and communication and develop a quality learning
and work
environment and help promote educational excellence, all goals and
focus of our School Improvement Plan.
Furthermore, we would have a Homework Tips Form distributed to all
teachers to help special education students succeed at homework
tasks and feel better about themselves. This would help educate
the whole child, teaching good habits as well as promoting a higher
student comfort level in the classroom and lessen behavior disruptions
stemming from feelings of failure.
We are distributing packets that provide various helpful hints to
the regular education staff when teaching mainstreamed students
and this serves as a manual for successful teaching of special students.
The packet's first article is entitled "Lost in Space".
This promotes educational excellence and building community and
communication.
Hopefully, if the manual is followed it will reduce the achievement
gap of underrepresented minority students as well. Lastly, we the
Special Education Task Force have placed a Suggestion Box in the
office to provide a means of better communication between the regular
education staff and the special education staff. The Sp.Ed. Department
will read the suggestions regularly and try to solve issues as they
arise as well as hear compliments. This will help
develop a quality learning and work environment.
We will place in all regular education teachers' boxes:
Communication Forms (filled out by each Sp. Ed. student's case manager)
Teacher Acknowledgement of Notification Forms
Homework Tips
"Lost in Space" special education packets (helpful hints)
We take a lot of pride in the progress this Special Education task
force has made to date. We're now in an implementation phase and
after implemented areas are in place, we'll re-visit suggestion
box and if needed call additional meetings monthly as needed.
June 2002
We worked on pinpointing root causes of Special Ed. concerns. In
doing so, we managed to work on two other problem areas that didn't
have task groups. Those were the "Whole Child" and the "Behavior
Concerns" groups from our retreat. After we pinpointed the root
causes, we went about solving them via subgroups. Each group looked
at "what is" then what action would help solve the issues or problems
and finally each subgroup drew up an outline of "what would be"
when we at Jordan carried out all our action plans.
Our three subgroups are Scheduling, Behavior, and
Continuum of Services (which means Special Ed. delivery models that
would be tailored to meet student needs not vice versa). Furthermore,
out of the three subgroups, the Behavior subgroup had homework surveys
taken to provide scientific data. They felt homework might be causing
behavior problems as well as low self-esteem, which can produce
behavior problems. We came up with homework tips for next year.
The Scheduling group formulated ways to better schedule and notify
teachers of their students' special needs so all get help they deserve.
We came up with a modifications / accommodations contract form,
which is now available to use (next year) and we came up with a
communications log (for next year) to be used quarterly. The log
will document communications between teachers, parents, and students.
Lastly, the Continuum of Services subgroup came up
with Jordan protocol and timelines to ensure kids have the kind
of classes and service delivery models they need. We want to make
sure the kids' needs dictate the types of services we provide here
at Jordan. If students feel comfortable when they're placed and
services are matched to meet their needs, we won't have as many
behavior problems.
Subgroups:
1. Scheduling
2. Behavior
3. Continuum of Services (Delivery Models)
Status: Our status tables are available upon request
(contact Jackie
Bullock via email)
Jackie Bullock
Facilitator
| 
