Last blog I stated I think that we should update our curricula to encompass teaching from a special education vantage point without regard to whether or not we have special education students in the class or not. Some of the practices actually strengthen learning for the students who are at "exceeds". I believe that every staff should have a ratio of teacher and teacher aides who are trained in special education and these teachers should also be at every grade level and at every subject. I say this because this year my daughter who had difficulty with reading and math had specialized time with teachers who were trained in this area and this was the first year which she began to have pride in her reading and math and began to look for opportunities to utilized the skills which she had learned. She passed her CRCT with flying colors and her self esteem has gone through the roof. We have been the SST route and after 3 years of trudging through the process, I literally gave up this year. I did not pursue the process. This year we moved to a new school district and amazingly they had a remediation plan in place already! Now, I know what the law says and I believe that you should go through the process but I do believe that if the teachers were already in place with this training there would be no need for the long drawn out paperwork, process etc. I also believe that it would be cost effective for for the US as a whole to institute this process to gain educational strength in our schools. I also believe this would change the state of learning in our institutions. Currently, we need more special education teachers and if we continue to have more students who need IEP it would be better to have prepared for this swing in our training of teachers than to run to catch up.
