Special Education

At the beginning of the school year, they told me that I didn’t have any special education students, or any gifted students. That all of them were in the other two classes. They suggested informing parents about gifted testing available for everybody. I informed parents in case they wanted to test their kids to know if they are gifted.

 I have one 504 student with a plan. His plan includes, special seating: soft cushion, preferred seating area close access to the teacher. Peer to peer assistance, make sure he has his homework on his planner every day, and that I need to be aware of his location during emergencies, fire drills, and lockdown drills. There are some low literacy students in my class, but they told me that the literacy specialist help is only until K-3. I chose one student for tutoring; I am doing the reading tutoring of the TIR program with her. I haven’t met with my school’s pre-referral group team, I just talked briefly to the literacy specialist, since this is my first year and they didn’t assign any special education students to my classroom. However, I want to find out more about referring students for special education, and the process. I will ask my mentor about the requirements, and process in the school.

Another of my concerns, is peer relationships in my classroom, I have noticed there is continuous bullying going on, we have an I message campaign but it works for the first message, before it becomes a fight. I referred a couple of students to peer group counseling, with the district specialist.