Recent
interviews with three special educators from the Hampton Roads region showed a
wide variance in the scope of concerns which need to be addressed in their
field.
The
initial question asked each teacher/administrator to identify their top three
concerns related to the provision of educational services to students with
disabilities.
The first teacher, Samantha Rozakis, is a former
graduate student at the College of William and Mary. Currently, she teaches
special education students between the fifth and eighth graders in rural Mathews
County. Rozakis had little trouble identifying her three concerns. The first concern is “actually providing an
appropriate education. For example - should students with multiple disabilities
really be in a public school in a self-contained class if their behaviors are
extreme? It is important to find the most appropriate setting to provide the
child with the best education.”
Rozakis’ second concern is with accommodations. As she noted, “the
purpose of accommodations is to "level the playing field" for the
student and allow them to work at the same level as their peers. However, if
you put too many accommodations on the child, he/she becomes accustomed to
having these accommodations even if they don't need them anymore. For example,
having a child have every assignment read to them stops them from learning to
read because they won't have to read - someone will always read to them. The
third concern was with staff training. Rozakis feels that teachers “are not
being fully educated on how to work with students with special needs, and in
turn, are not working with the children properly. For example, if you are
working with a student with autism and don't understand the characteristics of
the disability, how can you help the child succeed?"
Her final point is mirrored by
Michele Mitchell, who serves as the director of special education for Newport
News Public Schools. The Newport News system has shown great progress in recent
years, particularly with issues of recidivism and helping dropout students find
their way back to school to earn a diploma or GED. Mitchell is overseeing the
improvements in her department, and lists her three concerns as follows:
·
the decrease in the number of students going
to college specifically for special education
·
the special education general curriculum degree
vs. students having expertise in specific areas of special education such as
LD, ED, ID
·
the frequent change in state assessments for
students with disabilities
Elizabeth McGrath
teaches in Newport News and has a specialized student body, that being the young
men and women housed in the juvenile detention facility. Although she listed
more than three concerns, one of them also dealt with the training given to
teachers. As she said, “all
teachers, regardless of content, should know exactly how to service special
education students. Additional training must be offered. A teacher education
program should include more than a Special Education law class.”
McGrath’s other
concerns are standardized scores for students with disabilities. Like Rozakis,
she frames the issue into a question, “How can the bar be measured with
students missing the prerequisite knowledge and the critical thinking skills? Her
third concern is the misidentification of minority males as learning disabled
students.
The interesting
comparison among the three responses is that all responded to the provision of
educational services for special education students by looking at the qualifications
of the server. Rozakis looked at the issue through the lens of staff training,
which includes educating all teachers, not just the special educators. Mitchell
addressed the issue from an angle of specialization; that is, how education
students should gain specialty training in LD, ED and ID, much like a medical
student might focus on cardiology or pediatrics.
McGrath also looks at training
for all teachers, with a specific focus on servicing special education
students.
The second theme
mentioned more than once was that of standardized testing for special education
students. While Mitchell commented on the constant change in expectations, McGrath
focused on the lapses between what the student knows and is expected to know.
The final theme looks
at the identification and placement of the special education student with the
concern being the attempt to match properly qualified teachers with properly
categorized students. Rozakis used extreme cases as an example, while McGrath’s
concern was more with the identification of the student’s disability, as well
as the practice of categorizing minority students as learning disabled, even
when the label is unjustified.
