This chapter focused mainly on special education students. I feel McHarg does a great job with parent relationships, but the information will only remind us and possibly inspire us to go beyond the expected.
The information regarding aides (paraprofessionals) is most beneficial. There is a communication “hole” due to lack of time, an aide’s paid schedule, and role assumptions. I am hopeful that the new sped form will eliminate the assumptions and help us define our roles more effectively. But…the issue remains of not having time to collaborate with the aides. Due to us losing 2 aides, our collaboration time with them has had to be removed in an effort to cover the high needs students in our building.
If you have a creative solution to this, please share it in the blog.
Coordinating Team Action:
Teacher and Class Paperwork – A plan summarizing each student’s general support needs, when the classroom teacher meets with the special education teacher, any peer supports used, type of support and plan to follow if difficulties arise. Information on school schedules of special education support (or any paperwork on a child) is confidential and should not be openly displayed or discussed; use of student initials or codes rather than actual names is preferable.
I think our new forms will meet this objective. The most important thing is to use an alternate identifying source (student number) and keep copies to track progress.
Coordinating across Team Members – When students require services from related services staff, the program design should reflect the input of these staff members. However, coordinating the efforts of team members to ensure smooth delivery of students’ programs is challenging.
Paraprofessionals – In order for paraprofessionals to become “highly qualified” and effectively utilized, schools must:
· Develop clear job descriptions.
| Instructional role | School support role | Liaison role | Personal support role | One-to-one role |
| Team membership, emotional support for students, monitoring student performance, staff development | General school duties, basic classroom support tasks, community based instruction | Adapting materials, peer facilitator, linkage with family | Personal care, therapy objectives, assist student with work assist with entire class | Provision of i-class support to individual students |
· Create a schedule and guidelines for supervision and link supervision to in-service training.
o Face-to-face contact with their immediate professional supervisors (general/special educators)
o Regular observation as they engage in the activities they do most often
o Constructive feedback on their performance
· Provide daily work schedules and written guidelines and link to supervision and in-service. This involves collaboration, revisions regularly, team-generated plans for addressing challenging behavior, coordination of services, definition of roles, etc…)
· Support the active involvement of paraprofessionals on the collaborative teams of the students they serve and the following benefits are observed:
o Their addition of information and ideas adds to the quality of team decisions
o Their participation enhances their knowledge and skill development
o Being active team members contributes to their positive relationship within the school community
To ensure the paraprofessional has all of these tools, a notebook for each aide should contain a daily schedule, IEP goals for children serving, data collection forms, and other vital information.
Coordinating with Related Service Providers – When therapy is provided in the context of classroom activities, teachers and specialists confer with each other four times more often than when therapy is on a pull-out basis. Elementary teachers were asked to describe the roles of related services providers in delivering coordinated programs in inclusive classrooms and they provided the following guidelines:
1. Reduce pull-out services, and use opportunities to work in the context of the class activities.
2. Provide equipment that helps the child participate in class and school activities.
3. Have flexible schedules that allow therapy to be provided during the most relevant times.
4. Based on the teacher’s unit topics or lesson plans, weave therapy into planned class activities.
5. Come prepared with adaptations, and be able to facilitate the student’s active participation in the class.
6. Be sensitive enough to know when to stay in the classroom and when to leave.
Coordinating with Family Members – Family time, resources, attitude and prior experience figure into every family’s ability and desire to “be involved” with their child’s education. However, evidence does not support a cause-and-effect relationship between improvements in parent involvement and improvements in student learning (Mattingly, Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriques, and Kayzar, 2002). When involvement is viewed as information sharing rather than simply attending school meetings, schools can improve the relationships between families and teams.
Communications – A notebook (home-school journal) can be utilized to communicate with families. This can be used by teachers for students with disabilities, at-risk students and/or students with challenging behavior. Collaborate with the parents as to who will have access to the notebook, what will and will not be written in the notebook, who will write in it and how often it will be written in. These notebooks can be used as data collection and periodically reviewed in team meetings. Avoid putting trivial information or consistently bad news in the notebook. Instead, use it as a vehicle for sharing positive and relevant information about students between home and school.
Facilitating Parent Participation in Team Interactions – Be considerate when scheduling meetings with family members, confirming the date/time beforehand. Friend/Cook (2003) and Dabkowski (2004) suggest that the most familiar school staff should act as a host, sitting nearest to the family members and providing the parent with the meeting information. Keep in mind a family’s sensitivity toward disabilities and at-risk behavior, always allowing time for a family’s questions and/or their opinion/views.
