Tell me what you think
Thursday, May 17, 2007
I want to hear from ESE teachers
Elementary, middle, and secondary. What are the biggest challenges you currently face and expect to face in the coming 2007-2008 school year? What are some positive aspects of the ESE program. Remember to be productive.
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4 comments:
I know you have listened to me, and know where to find everything I have written. Since talking with you last week, I had a 1:1 meeting with Wynnie which lasted nearly an hour. We are asked to do more support facilitation (co-teaching which minimally could mean dropping in on the class 1x a week)and caseloads will be evenly distributed among ALL teachers. The number of ESE teachers at a school had nothing to do with the 6/7 move. She took the total number of ESE students at a school (less those that just received a service like speech) and divided it by 25 for HS, 20 for MS, and 18 for ElEd. That's how all the ESE losses came about.
The bottom line is; at the HS level, each teacher will have 350+ hours of case management paperwork and students will have less time with a highly qualified ESE teacher in the classroom.
Do more and students get less. What a way to keep teachers in the most critical need subject area across the county!
I could not fit everything in to a comment, so I wrote a post—Exceptional Student Education (ESE) is Simply Difficult—based on the question you asked of ESE teachers.
Please provide the same post for ESE parents and students
I have been a Master’s level, “highly-qualified”, elementary, ESE Teacher in Hillsborough County for the past six years. I have never been so frustrated as I have been this year. How can I best advocate and serve my students? My self-contained class is comprised of 12 students, grades 2-5 with various exceptionalities. I am asked to set high expectations, teach to different modalities, teach the Sunshine State Standards and have my students take the yearly state assessment. I have also been asked to have my students meet their IEP goals. Here is the hurdle: how do I teach a 4th grader the grade level expectations if this student is on a kindergarten reading, writing and math grade level as assessed by the school psychologist? How do I explain to the parent why I am teaching, with accommodations, subject matter that is so far beyond the comprehension level? How do I explain to the parent why this student must take a 4th grade FCAT in the spring, and take monthly practice tests in school, even though he can not read a DRA level 2 booklet? Of course, the student does not qualify for the alternate assessment because he is not allocated a functional curriculum and the fact that he is SLD. What is the solution? I simply want to do what is best for my students. I want to be able to teach them the basics and then build higher. But if I can’t teach them the basics, aren’t I setting them up for failure? My voice is a voice that represents my students, their families, my colleagues and a voice that was once a disabled student who would not have made it past middle school if school then was as it is now.
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