District Administration - June 2011 - (Page 56)

New Directions for Special Ed in large part to the fact that students are receiving the supports they need early and effectively,” she says. O’Donovan says that if problems with reading or math are caught early on, in the primary elementary school grades, schools can provide help immediately—and do so only for as long as the students need it. “Before, the only way to get help for reading was to go to special ed,” he says, and then students were kept there. Now, educators are recognizing that “they still have to know the same math as everybody else.” If a child in second grade has trouble adding two-digit numbers, for example, she is temporarily placed in a math group with others who have the same issue and then reassessed, perhaps as soon as six weeks later, and removed if she has leapt over the hump. “In the past, these students went into a pullout class for the whole year,” O’Donovan says. North Carolina has used RTI for more than a decade, and Watson says it has revealed that many students need early intervention, but not necessarily special ed. “We were overidentifying, because any child who needed anything was automatically identified as special ed,” she says. “Among the 20 percent not succeeding, not all of them may need special ed. They may need some other type of intervention in their instruction.” To that end, the state has spent the past 11 years giving teachers intensive training on how to teach reading, called Reading Foundations, that Watson says has led to “dramatic results on test scores.” The state started similar training in math six years ago, called Math Foundations. Each training is five full days. At the local level, Pasco County began RTI about four years ago, mostly at the elementary level in reading, and has expanded its use from 13 to 30 schools while piloting RTI in two middle schools and two high schools. More students are reaching gradelevel standards between kindergarten and first-grade, but such gains have been less consistent in third-grade and higher, Van Name-Larson says. “We need to remain 56 June 2011 English as a Second Language teacher Car-Ann DiFilippo works with students with special needs at Dillard Drive Elementary School in the Wake County (N.C.) Public School District. curious to see what is the value of this over time, and how can we duplicate it across buildings? With budget cuts, are we going to have the resources to provide the multitiered systems of supports?” Westside Schools served as a state pilot in Nebraska five years ago for RTI, beginning with K2 literacy and ramping up from there. “It’s our goal not necessarily to reduce the numbers of kids in special ed tive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) to deal with disciplinary problems in a more constructive way— aiming to change school culture to support positive behavior and recognize performance—which Watson says has resulted in “dramatic decreases in office discipline referrals and suspensions, plus the unintended positive consequence of dramatic achievement increases.” “Our local districts can’t continue to rob Peter to pay Paul. There’s only so much pie.” —Luann Purcell, executive director, Council of Administrators of Special Education but to help all kids be better readers,” Milliken says. “Nationally, 80 percent of kids in special ed have a reading issue.” To that end, the district has used stimulus funds to bring together reading specialists and special education teachers monthly for intensive training. The emphasis on RTI nationally has been encouraging to Chambers. “What I see is more children getting good interventions and supports that don’t necessarily have to have a label of ‘disabled,’” she says. “It’s an exciting change that we can get on the preventative side.” Since RTI was not required to be implemented in districts until 2009, it’s probably too soon to measure its precise impact on special ed numbers, Chambers adds. North Carolina has ramped up Posi- A rapidly growing district with a relatively young staff, Plainfield District 202 provides 30 hours of professional development during a teacher’s first year, 20 hours the second year, and 10 hours the third year, Gronemeyer says. The district also works hard to train support staff. The Bottom Line State- and district-level special educators across the nation have faced a significant challenge over the past few years as state budgets have grown tighter, both in terms of staffing and materials. “State budgets are just decimated all across the country,” East says. “Local directors of special ed and principals see this firsthand—the availability of teachers, the availability of related services.” District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - June 2011

District Administration - June 2011
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Curriculum News
Sustainability News
Administrator Profile
District Profile
District-Level Downsizing
Lessons Learned from One-to-One
Partner for One-to-One Success
Pioneering States
The Changing Role of the CTO
New Directions for Special Ed
Problem/Solution
Books
Products
Student Counsel
Going Mobile
Professional Opinion

District Administration - June 2011