Special Education Services at Lyman Moore: 

*a philosophical overview and practical guide*

    (we help your child work the magic!)

 

PHILOSOPHICAL   OVERVIEW: 

Lyman Moore provides special education services in many ways to many students.  Our approach may be different from other school districts or from the approach used in your child's elementary school. 

In general, we use a co-teach model when special education is needed which means that the special education teacher usually (but not always) is in the same classroom with the regular education teacher helping students.  This permits the special education teacher to work with more than the one identified student who has an IEP (Individual Education Plan) and also allows the identified student to participate in the regular classroom with peers.  This is specifically different than a "pull out" approach which pulls out students with special education needs from the classroom and into, say, a resource room for a class period or more. 

However, at Lyman Moore we realize that in many cases, being out of the classroom and working on remedial work or a different level of work, such as in reading or math may be  exactly  what is needed (or is required, say, in the IEP) and so we do offer this "Resource Room" with special educators, too, but more on an as-needed basis.  Our school's philosophy is that with "differentiation" teachers can assess each student's levels and reach all those students' ability levels in one classroom.  

"Differentiation"  means making the instruction slightly different for students based on individual learning styles and abilities, making the material more involved or less intense at that grade level, more in-depth going into wider material, or less in-depth but instead a more narrow focus.  The concept here is that with effective "differentiation," many students with special education needs can remain in a regular education classroom along with all other levels of students including advanced students, but with the material or teaching approach tailored ("differentiated") to the individual learning style and ability.   You can imagine that this differentiation is a cornerstone of educational philosophy and that its challenges, its "best practices" and research methods are often what is explored on teacher development days or possibly the Wednesday afternoon teacher workshops.   

 

HOW  SPECIAL EDUCATION   WORKS:

In the seventh grade, each house has a special education teacher and an ed tech who work primarily with that House's students.

• In Katahdin-7 the special education teachers this year is Matt King and the Ed Tech is Kathy Farrell.
• In Cadillac-7 the special education teacher is Matt King and the Ed Techs, Esther Peison Sarah Burton.
• Our Learning Strategist is the person whose job is to make all the 'PET' meetings happen.  A 'PET' is a Pupil Evaluation Team and involves all the key people who know and work with or might work with a student who needs supports or services.  Parents are a key part of this Pupil Evaluation Team:  You know your child the best!    
• The Lyman Moore Learning Strategist, Erin Frazier, is the person who contacts parents and House teachers to arrange a PET meeting annually or at other requested times. 
• If your child has already been identified with special education needs and has a Individual Education Plan (an IEP), then Erin Frazier will contact you about the meeting date and time.
• [If your child has  NOT  been "identified," that is, has not been officially evaluated and then determined by the PET team to qualify for special education services and if your child has a learning disability or physical or emotional impairment, then our Learning Strategist can explain how the Response To Intervention process (RTI) works where the team may propose specific accommodations to address your concerns. To reach the Learning Strategist, contact any special education teacher, the counselor, or our main office.]
• How the PET meeting works: The whole team comes together including teachers, parents, the student (if parents so desire), other specialists or consultants who the parent or school feels may contribute to a productive plan or who work with the student.  These people form the PET (pupil evaluation team).  Then at the meeting, the members of this team hammer out a plan for services, including: modifications or accommodations in the regular classroom or curriculum; extra help in a different classroom setting; altering the level of the curriculum; special arrangements for certain things, such as, say, reading, assignments, test-taking, long term projects, gym, classroom breaks  -- and any other services the child may need, such as speech/language, counseling, behavioral supports.  This plan is then written, recorded at Portland School's Central Office and distributed to all team members and mailed home for parent signature.  It is called the IEP (Individual Education Plan) and is a legal document. 
• Then this plan, this IEP, is re-visited periodically with the House teachers, the Learning Strategist, the parents, the school counselor or social worker and anyone else involved in the student's middle school life to be sure it best suits the student's changing needs and addresses the student's disability to promote a successful learning experience in school. 
• Typical modifications vary widely: a student may have a homeroom with the ed tech or special education teacher to work on organization; a student may have a program change which adds extra reading enrichment time instead of the regular foreign language; a student may have fewer assignments than the rest of the class, or special deadlines or arrangements to get those assignments completed; a student may have a completely different text or assignment; a student may have scheduled breaks from class or "check-ins" with other adults in the building including the nurse or counselor.   Parents, teachers, consultants and special educators all contribute to what kinds of modifications are needed and available and what other supports may be needed.
• A clear process for referral, evaluation procedures, appeals and complaints is outlined as required by federal law for all public schools, in a written Parent Rights information sheet, which is provided at all PET meetings or ahead of time in the mail.  In addition, our Special Education Administrator at our Portland's Central Office, Barbara Dee, oversees the legal and procedural special ed guidelines to safeguard the process.   In my experience, parents have by far been satisfied with our support services. 

IF NOT SPECIAL ED:

CAN MY CHILD STILL RECEIVE SERVICES IF MY CHILD IS NOT IDENTIFIED AS SPECIAL ED?

In many school districts, the answer would be "no" but Portland Schools has what we call "seamless services" which means that we try to provide services to students without drawing a line between who IS and who IS NOT special education identified making it pretty hard for the casual observer to see who receives special education.  To the extent that our financial and staffing resources allow, our special education teachers and ed techs may provide the same or very similar services to any student who needs the help, not only to students with learning or other handicapping disabilities.  In fact, this sometimes is exactly what we do if the evaluative team convenes and determines that no disability exists that would qualify a student to be "special education identified,"  but the student still needs help nonetheless.  So in that case, the team often decides well, let's place the student in so-and-so special ed teacher's co-teach class for, say, language arts and give the student some additional support or access to resources that way.  The law also provides a Response To Intervention (RTI) which is a method to measure interventions along the way, to see how and what helps before actually going into an official referral to special education. 

The starting point for any of this would be the same person, our school's Learning Strategist, Ms. Erin Frazier.    You can call our office to reach her, or a teacher or counselor can ask Ms. Frazier to contact you  if you have a question.