Barriers to collaboration can often include differing philosophies around special education, misunderstandings around roles and responsibilities, personality conflicts, a lack of communication, and an unwillingness to compromise.  Below are some of the strategies that I have utilized in the past that have resulted in a more positive collaboration between general and special educators:

1. Initiate Contact Early

At the beginning of each school year, it is important that you initiate contact with all of the general education teachers that you work with during your first week back. This will most likely occur organically through the activities and meetings that your school has scheduled, but you will want to make additional time to meet with the general education teachers of the students that you case manage or instruct.

If you are self-contained, it is still important that you establish a collaborative relationship with the general education teachers for the grades and contents that you teach. They will be a valuable resource in the future when you are trying to balance multiple subject areas and grade levels. The same would go for a resource teacher who services students across many grade levels and contents.

 2. Plan for Recurring Meetings

During this initial meeting, you should plan for a recurring collaborative meetings. Most schools have collaborative planning and team meeting times outlined in the master schedule. However, many time there are school and district level requirements that need to be met during these meetings. Because if this it is important to have additional time to really go deep into a discussion around student needs, IEPs, and lesson planning.

3. Be Ready to Learn

Even if you are a special education teacher who is dually certified (i.e. hold special education certification in addition to a content area, such as math), you probably do not have the depth of content knowledge that your general education counterpart does.

Many times general education teachers have been able to focus on fewer courses, grade level, etc. as opposed to special education teachers who balance multiple grade levels, course, etc. in addition to balancing case management duties. Because of this, you should be ready to learn from the general education teacher and gain a deeper understanding around the content during your meetings.

Even if the general education teacher that you are working with is new, they still may bring a different perspective or new ideas to the content that you share. By having this knowledge, you are then able to think through how to make the general curriculum accessible for all of your students.

4. Be Ready to Teach

You should also be ready to go into these meetings ready to share your knowledge and skills. As a special educator, you have deeper insight into your students’ strengths and weaknesses and a greater understanding around the IEP.

This is the time to share this knowledge, so that your students are successful when they are being instructed by this general education teacher. Even if you are a self-contained teacher, the strategies and modifications that you develop for your students, could also be incorporated by the general education who has students in their class who are struggling with the content.

5. Take Notes

Many districts may require you to keep notes from collaborative meetings for data collection purposes. Even if this is not a requirement within your district, I strongly encourage you to take good notes of what was discussed during your collaborative meetings.

This not only reminds you of the things that you discussed and any actions that you planned to take, but it also serves as documentation for IEP purposes, parent meetings, and meetings with administration. If the question is ever raised of whether you are collaborating in support of your students, you will have documentation readily available as support.

6. Always Keep the Student in Mind

Regardless of how positive of a collaboration that you aim for, there may be times where things get a little rocky. When this does occur, I think that is important to always keep in mind that we are working together in support of a student.

Keeping this in the forefront of my mind has helped me in navigating tense situations and in being the bigger person when it came to conflicts that have arisen from collaborative relationships. I always ask myself, “Would holding a grudge or ending this collaborative relationship impact the outcomes for the student that I am responsible for teaching?”.

When I think of it from that perspective, I know that I do not want to let my students down, so it gives me the strength to overcome personal conflicts with others who are vital to my students’ overall success.

The post 6 Tips for Collaborating with General Education Teachers appeared first on Teach Special Education.

Parents also have vital information about their children that can support teachers in making the best decisions about the instruction of the students that they teach.  Because of this, it is important that we establish a positive and open communication system with our parents.

Today we are going to look at 7 tips that can support special education teachers when working with parents.  

Introduce Yourself Early

It is important to introduce yourself to the parent at the beginning of the year.  I find that the best way to do this is either in person or via the phone. This demonstrates a more genuine expression of interest in the parent and student than the standard letter home.  

If you have 15 students in your class or on caseload, it is well worth the time and effort to spend the first week or two of school calling each parent and giving them an overview of how you will support their child in the coming months.  

You can start out with introducing yourself, telling a bit about your background, and asking about how they think you can best support their child in being successful.  This simple conversation demonstrates that you are on their side and are focused on helping their child succeed.

 Send an Introductory Letter with Your Contact Information

To follow-up with your initial phone call and to catch parents who you may not have been able to get in touch with, you can follow-up with an introductory letter home.  You can include the same details that you would include in the phone call, but also providing your contact information in writing can be helpful for parents.

Establish Electronic Communication

A great way to keep parents in the loop regarding their child’s progress is to email them on a regular basis.   Many teachers find success in keeping the parents of their entire class or caseload in-the-know by sending out a weekly email blast or a newsletter.

Most people check their emails at least once per day and using this method cuts down on the likelihood that your students will misplace a note or communication log.  By incorporating a weekly or bi-weekly newsletter you can ensure that your parents are all on the same page about homework assignments, major projects, school or class events, and any areas in which they can support at home.  

Communication Logs with Signatures

Many classroom teachers have some kind of classwide paper-based communication for their entire class.  This quickly captures information regarding behavior, homework, nightly reading, etc.

Parents are then asked to sign off each night that they have read the daily communication.  By having this system for your entire class, then it does not single out students who may have this communication actually outlined in their IEP for academics or behavior.  

If you are a resource teacher, then you can collaborate with your general education teacher to incorporate some of the information into the communication system that is used within their classroom.

Using this method also gives parents a way to write a quick note back if they have any concerns, questions, or information that they want to share with the teacher.  By having a classwide system for communication, you can catch many minor issues prior them becoming huge concerns.

Contact Parents about their Children’s Success

Many times we find the time to reach out when there is a concern about a student and don’t spend enough time reaching out to celebrate the wins.  Parents and students both don’t respond well to only hearing about the the things that need to improved upon in the classroom. Try making a parent and student’s day with a quick celebration call!

Never Wait Until the IEP Meeting to Initiate Contact

One of the biggest mistakes that a special education teacher or case manager can make is waiting until a student has an IEP meeting to initiate contact with a parent.  At this point, if the parent has any concerns around the instruction that the student has received over the past year, the teacher has lost any chance at being looked at as an ally and instead is viewed as a stranger and sometimes even an adversary.  

Flag Parents that You are Unable to Reach

If a parent is difficult to get ahold of, flag this for administration, your school social worker, or your guidance counselor.  They should be able to assist you with initiating contact. Showing that you are putting this effort forward also reflects highly on you as a member of your school community.

Parents play a huge role in supporting students with disabilities.  If you have any parents that you have not had a chance to have a phone call or face-to-face meeting yet, I want to challenge you to make an attempt within the next week.  If you are successful, chances are that it will make things much easier down the road.

By establishing and maintaining a method of communication with parents, special education teachers can spend their time concentrating on instructing students with disabilities and spend less time focusing on addressing concerns.

How have your experiences been when it comes to communicating with parents? Share your experiences in the comments or over at our Facebook Group.

The post 7 Tips for Communicating with Parents of Special Education Students appeared first on Teach Special Education.

It is hard to add the new role of supervisor of other adults when when a special education teacher has so many other areas to focus on.  Also, administrators often do not have the time or even recognize the importance of supporting with clearly defining roles and outlining expectations for paraprofessionals in the classroom.

Often, paraprofessional have many years in their role, may already have relationships with the staff and students, and may already have a process for how they go about doing their job.  However, at the end of the day, it is the special education teacher’s responsibility to lead these individuals and ensure that they play their role in instructing the students with disabilities that are shared.

We are going to go review five tips for managing your adult support professionals:

Get to Know Your Paraprofessional

It is important that you take the time to get to know your paraprofessional, preferably as soon as you begin working with them.  It’s easy to get caught up in beginning of year activities or if they join you mid-year, you are already balancing so much that it’s hard to find the time out for this.

However, you must make time earlier rather than later. You should be ready to ask them following questions: How do you typically support instruction? What do they think their strengths are as far as content and instruction? Behavior? Planning? What are your areas of growth? (i.e. teaching math). How do you deal with difficult parents? What role do you typically have in planning lessons? Tell me about yourself. Your family? Your interests?

And of course you would want to share information about yourself as you work your way through the questions.

Determine Exactly What You Want

The first thing that you must think through is how exactly your paraprofessional can support your special education students.  Think about your day and the goals that you typically want to accomplish. If your overall goal is to have your students meet a particular learning objective, think about the role that your paraprofessional can play in helping meet this goal or objective.   Also, consider how your para can support you with classroom management.  Is your expectation that they assist with small group instruction? Would you prefer that they assist with behaviors and routines? Can they assist with grading papers and assignments?

Clearly Define Assignments and Expectations

Once you have determined how you would like your paraprofessional to support you as a special education teacher. It is important that you clearly define the actions that you will need them to take to support you and your students.

If you are planning a lesson, you may even want to write this out in your lesson plan. “During small group time I will work with a small group on this skill, while Ms. Para works with a small group on this activity, and then we will switch.”

When thinking through the actions that you need your paraprofessional to take, it is important that you determine whether you will need to support them with training. Ask yourself, do they have the capacity to run the small group activity? If not, what training and support do they need from me in order to complete this task successfully?

Check-in Often

It is important to have a check-in scheduled daily, where you can get feedback around the day’s activities. This will ensure that your paraprofessional feels like an integral part of your instructional team and oftentimes their perspective is very valuable when reflecting on how to make the learning more accessible for students.

During these check-ins the feedback should be a give and take. Not only will your paraprofessional need to be open to receiving feedback, but you should be open to receiving feedback as well. I can’t tell you how much I grew during my initial years teaching by consulting with my paraprofessionals. They offered great advice and tips that many administrators would not have been able to provide me with because they were not able to work as closely with students with disabilities.

Thank Your Paraprofessional

We get so caught up in the overwhelm of being a special educator, that sometimes we forget to stop and express our appreciation for all that our paraprofessionals do.

There is so much that I could not have pulled off without my paraprofessionals and I tried to thank them often for always being willing to jump in and respond to whatever I needed. I have had to work with difficult paraprofessionals in the past as well, but I still did my best to find the things that they were doing that were positive and show my appreciation, even if it was small.

For holidays, birthdays, or just because, it is also nice to provide a small token of appreciation. This could be a card, a gift card, a stationary set, or anything else that you think your paraprofessional may enjoy. This definitely isn’t mandatory, but it’s a nice gesture to show someone that you are working with so closely that you recognize the work and support that they are putting into support you and your students.

By starting off  with a plan of communication and collaboration with your paraprofessional and support team, special education teachers are then able to concentrate on what really matters…supporting students with special needs!

The post 5 Tips for Communicating with Paraprofessionals appeared first on Teach Special Education.