r/specialed

I’m a Resource teacher at a middle school, also certified in math. Next year I will coteach math 6 and math 7 with a teacher I’ve never worked with. At the end of school, we had one conversation. (More like, she talked a mile a minute and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise). Ugh. I find her overbearing and bossy. Anyway, she wants me to take whoever performs low on the monday exit ticket over to my own classroom for a couple days of the week. (To help the students, of course, but she kept on talking about the large class size and it seems like she just wants fewer students in there :( This sounds like the opposite of what my AP/evaluator wants me to do, which is run small groups in the gen ed classroom.

Middle school students want to stay with their peers! How will I build relationships with the whole class if I’m constantly ferrying a bunch of students all around? Please help. Should I try to meet with my admin before August to clarify her expectations? Thank you for your help.

I’m reading KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR TEACHING STUDENTS WITH AUTISM. The data collection is daunting. Each student could end up with literally one thousand pages of filled-in forms by the end of the school year. And then how is it going to be parsed in a meaningful way? I don’t think I’ve seen it in practice but I have only been a substitute until this coming year.

We are still in the throes of settling our child’s IEP for September. They are transitioning from Pre-K to K.

My first question, she presently receives speech 3x weekly at school with some of her classmates even receiving up to 5x weekly. As part of my preparation for our next meeting, which will ultimately MUST result in the team developing something we can all agree to, even if temporarily, I’ve been reviewing the IEPs that have been approved (so far) for next year so I can ensure what I am asking for is reasonable.

In K-12, related services use a monthly model with the maximum amount of sessions being seemingly capped at 9 30 minute sessions a month.

Is it normal for there to be a reduction in the amount of related services offered once kids hit elementary school? I understand if a kid dramatically shows improvement or something, but just a blanket policy?

My second question, is that I’ve noticed every child placed in a self contained program has a service for “Program Aide” that they receive daily and either “throughout the day” or “6 hours” for duration. Well, every child except for one has this service item listed. What is this service? And if it’s just documenting that there is an aide in the class, why would every child except for one have it listed?

Edited to clarify: Our BOE posts their meeting agendas publicly and within those, they share, mostly redacted, copies of IEPs that were sent for board approval. I am not doing anything dubious or illegal to access them.

I will try to keep this brief but I am looking for some general thoughts/advice. I have been working in education for 4 years, special education for 2 years. 1 year in a public middle school in special ed inclusion classes as support staff (essentially a paraeducator but through a temp agency), and 1 year in a non-public school as an assistant teacher (taking the lead teaching role when necessary but not the "head" of the classroom.

I am feeling far too emotionally invested, and there is endless drama where I work, but that is not my main point of this post. Is anyone else facing the dilemma of feeling like you are in the minority when it comes to things as simple as students and their wellbeing?

I get brushed off in so many regards, for example reporting staff that I find to be inappropriate with how they treat students leads to being told "focus on the kids, not peer drama." Then a week later multiple staff members get fired for getting into a verbal altercation with one another.

As it is a non-public, there is not a union. Only 1/4 administrators have genuinely taken action and made me feel validated, but again, it was a case of a colleague being verbally abusive and intimidating to ME, not involving a student.

Just, why are these issues so quickly resolved? It makes me feel like I'm crazy every day hearing jaded people say "welp, that's how it is" but no one is striving toward any type of change? Is anyone else in a similar situation? I am so torn between staying here to be a safe and supportive staff member for my students, but I am so overwhelmed and it seeps into all aspects of my life. Any comments at all would be helpful, I just care so much, apparently too much, and feel so stuck. TIA :)

Anyone work at a school that doesn’t offer a 15-1-1 and will NOT bus any kids out to a 15-1-1?

School population is roughly 7,000 and I’ve never worked in a district, where not one child needed this.

We have 12-1-1 and smaller, but we are letting kids with Down syndrome (I know - it’s a spectrum) go off to middle school with very little help. I don’t think they can access the curriculum reasonably.

What do I do to have my administration support me? It’s statistically impossible that you could have that type of student body population and not one student would need that placement for LRE.

Someone told me that LRE is actually the LEE, so the least restrictive environment is actually the least expensive environment. I’ve been a teacher for six years. Gen ed teacher looking for help!

I teach English to new speakers.

My question boils down to culture vs learning disability.

In this case language, communication isn’t the issue. I am fluent in this student’s language.

In their native language the student writes at a fifth grade level, their age when their education got severely disrupted by Covid and subsequently, immigrating. Their English is stagnant at a level 2 (mod bot didn’t like the acronym but i have no idea what it stands for- it’s the English test for learners).

How can I differentiate between issues caused by a learning disability and issues caused by the interruption in their education? What kind of interventions and supports can I provide?

This kid will never get tested or receive services for sped, like many of my ML students.

They have one year left before they age out of public school. They are in danger of losing their job because they work too slowly and they haven’t learned on the job.
To me this points to a more general learning issue but I’ve gotten harsh pushback on that. People insist it’s because of the stark cultural differences and the expectations that people transition from rural lifestyles to using tech for everything. He has difficulty accessing the app, following complex written directions, etc. I see the validity of that. How can I help these kids in general to the “read to learn” culture?

How can I help them? I explicitly teach spelling rules as my opener and we spend classtime on “accent reduction,” aka please exaggerate the difference between beach/ bitch, sheet/ shit, it’s caaaaan’t. This student can’t hear the consonant sounds and I do what I can to make it explicit for him- mouth position, voiced/ not voiced. His intelligibility is improving but he’s hard to understand.

I'm looking for some advice from those of you who have inherited really complicated IEPs.

I'm an elementary contained sped teacher, and one of my new students has an IEP that appears to have been written to keep the peace with the family and their attorney. The student is not new to the school, just my class. I am familiar with the student. It took a dozen meetings at 2-4 hours a time for them to agree on the final one.

From everything I've reviewed, I feel like I'm walking into a ticking timebomb. Last year, the student spent the vast majority of their day in a self contained classroom. Toward the end of the school year, the family requested nearly full time general education and involved an attorney. The final IEP ended up placing him in general education for the majority of the day (roughly 22 hours/week), with about 10 hours/week in my classroom, including lunch.

Here's where I'm struggling.

The students present levels paint the picture of a child who is mostly non-speaking, does not follow directions, needs full physical prompts 100% of the time, cannot match at all, does not recognize their name, and cannot attend to any tasks. The new IEP has well over 20 annual goals (4-6 in nearly every area) for me alone including goals like rote counting, matching all uppercase to lowercase, and other skills that seem inappropriate for what the student's present levels describe. This doesnt include related service providers. The student was unable to attend to any alt testing, and appears to attend to limited tasks for 1 minute at a time.

I'm absolutely going to do everything I can to support this student, and I want them to be successful. But I'm honestly feeling overwhelmed trying to figure out how this is supposed to work in practice.

For those of you in similar roles:

* If a student spends 80%+ of the day in general education, who is typically responsible for adapting the general education curriculum and materials? Is that primarily the special education teacher, the para, the general education teacher, or is it truly a team effort?

* How do you realistically provide meaningful instruction on 20+ IEP goals when you only have the student for about two hours a day? Plus, a caseload of others who will be in the room.

* Have you ever inherited an IEP where the goals didn't seem to align with the student's present levels? How did you approach that?

I genuinely see some big ethical issues here, and I feel like the scapegoat.

I truly believe every student deserves the least restrictive environment that's appropriate for them. Unfortunately, I just don't see how I am expected to navigate this situation ethically while know we arent serving the student appropriately. I'm just trying to wrap my head around implementing an IEP where the goals, present levels, and placement all seem so disconnected.

I'd really appreciate hearing how others have navigated situations like this.

Is it just me or has the concept of LRE become too closely equated with inclusion, even though IDEA requires an individualized determination? I think a lot of people forget this and assume the LRE is the typical classroom. I’m just wondering if anyone else has picked up on this recently. The key point is LRE the INDIVIDUALIZED, not gen ed! smh

Hi, psychs! This is going to be long, so I appreciate anyone who is able to advise. This whole thing is really making my brain itch. I'm a high school resource teacher, and I just accidentally found out that my kindergarten teacher attempted to have me referred for an eval when I was in kinder (2005-06). I had no idea that this happened! Upon talking with my mom about it, I think she was the main reason it did not reach the eval stage - which, by the way, I am NOT criticizing my mother for at all. As an adult/special education teacher, I can attest I did not need an IEP. Past kindergarten, my social behaviors didn't negatively impact my academics. I went on to undergrad, grad school, and now teach, obviously, and I am socially successful and good at what I do. So, I'm not saying my mom was in the wrong for what she did (not recorded on these files) to advocate against that. My mom was very against the referral and against pursuing an autism eval, as well. 

I have never been evaluated for autism. As an adult, I would be very surprised if I did qualify - I have a few people in my life in my ear about going for an evaluation, but I am not interested in doing so, and again, I do not believe I am on the spectrum. Some people also think ODD, which I know I don't have for sure. lol. I was diagnosed (from a few years later in my childhood) with general anxiety disorder, panic disorder, major depressive disorder, and then at 21 DX'd with ADHD (recorded as inattentive type, but I think I am more combined). That's it. So, nothing really "out of the ordinary". My mom does have DX'd ADHD and we suspect she has low support needs autism. My dad has SEVERE anxiety (much worse than mine) and likely an undiagnosed personality disorder.

I have always been a "quirky" or "eccentric" person with a pretty blunt affect and a short attention span/hyperactive behaviors. I have had issues in my past with experiencing domestic abuse and substance abuse in my late teen/early 20s years, and having an unusual relationship with my dad, but nothing that would have impacted me at that age.

Anyway - I am a rambler - all that being said, I was wondering if anyone would be able to read through the (transcribed) versions of the notes from the pre-referral form, and give me their opinions on everything? I am mostly curious if I would have been moved to an eval stage nowadays, or if there is anything that stands out or would be of concern, or not of concern. This has been on my mind for days and I am really curious what the psychs think. It is really just aggressive curiosity more than anything. I also have limited (read - no) experience with elementary special ed but am very experienced with the teens, so I am not sure what is the norm for kinders.

Filled out by psych:

• Summary of concerns:
• Overly quiet or no emotion
• concerns over emotional behaviors
• freezes when asked to perform a task
• flaps
• socially awkward
• Dr. [REDACTED] – family doctor – referred to CDC.

Team questions:

• possible high functioning autism or anxiety
• Team suggestions:
• keep informed
• Tasks assigned:
• documentation only at this time
• attend to transition to Grade 1 issues.

Filled out by kinder classroom para:

Do you have concerns about this student? Yes (circled)

If so, what are your concerns? [REDACTED] seems very anxious about trying new things. She requires individual direction to understand. Some of the time she just doesn't follow the conversations in circle time. [REDACTED] will raise her hand if a question is asked, but when called on, she completely blanks out. When excited, she waves her hands in a flutter motion. She also does this when she seems to be trying to process information. [REDACTED] has a very active imagination. She has many imaginary friends that she speaks of often.

As a para, I do not really have any suggestions to help her. I do see that she does not function as part of the class. She definitely needs more one-on-one to understand and execute direction.

Filled out by my mom:

How do you think [REDACTED] feels about school this year? [REDACTED] is excited about learning and being with her friends, especially [REDACTED], but she also feels anxious about school and will resist going on a daily basis.

Is there anything going on in [REDACTED]'s life that might be contributing to what we're seeing at school? There hasn't been a specific incident or ongoing situation that would account for her difficulties. She does appear to have high anxiety levels consistent with her parents and the rest of her family.

Have any of [REDACTED]'s former teachers had similar concerns? If so, what did they try? How did it work? There were no concerns raised in preschool.

What do you think might help [REDACTED] in school? It seems that everything possible is being done in the classroom to make her more comfortable, but perhaps I could resume coming into the classroom one morning a week.

Is there anything you can share with me that might help us to develop a plan for [REDACTED]?

• [REDACTED] becomes frustrated very quickly.
• She wants her work to be perfect the first time.
• She has told me that she "wants to please Miss [REDACTED]."
• Under stress, [REDACTED] often retreats into her imagination.
• I would like to rule out a hearing issue.
• I would like to also explore her ability to comprehend complex verbal instruction. For example, the pattern question requested from Miss [REDACTED]—creating the pattern—came easily. When I read the problem to her she did not understand what she needed to do. She needed me to tell her to create a pattern.
• [REDACTED] seems to feel somewhat resentful of being given direction.
• I think she would rather not do something at all than make a mistake and disappoint teachers or parents, which may account for her hesitation in doing and completing tasks.
• When I correct a mistake she will argue with me and make it correct "in her world".
• Unless comprehension is an issue, I think [REDACTED]'s problems are social and I want to help her in any way possible given team insight.

Filled out by kinder teacher going over attempted accoms/modifs:

Strategy	Brief summary of outcomes
Modified instructional methods	(blank)
Modified instructional pacing	repetition and extra time
Modified instructional materials	no
1:1 Instruction	only to support her to keep working
Small group instruction	during centers time
After school tutoring or assistance with homework	N/A
Peer tutoring	N/A
Cues for verbal directions	often given multiple times
Extra time to complete assignments	Always
Parent contact/conference	Mom was volunteering every Thurs. but stopped because [REDACTED] was becoming dependent on her.
Home/School log or reports (daily or weekly)	no
Behavioral plan or contract	no
Modified classroom arrangement or setting	no
Modified schedule to include breaks or alternative activities	no
Consultation with support staff	She has been mentioned at Support Services meetings, but I feel more is needed.
Other	She often "spaces out" for periods of time. She flinches every time I mention her name. Nervous/anxious

TLDR: What if anything do you do to prepare your students for (positive or negative) interactions with the police?
Does your school or Classroom do anything to prepare students to withstand frustration while experiencing a consequence from law-enforcement officers? Specifically students with level 1 autism. Does anyone include something in the transition section about registering with local police departments as someone with autism? Or having them wear autism bracelets at all time (which you know, that could kind of suck for them).
—
If there is nothing in place, please just indicate ‘no’ so I can gauge the yeas vs nays.
—
Every time I’ve brought this up at school I get weird looks. But I just watched a body cam video of a police officer doing a DUI stop on a girl who reminded me so much of a student that I have. Although this is just a general question not specific for this certain student, just to add context, this student would be considered like level one autism. A very common scenario in my teaching experience is where my students don’t “ look” like they have autism and I think it would just be very hard to train all police officers in noticing just little subtle things that would indicate like maybe this person’s on the spectrum. My hope is that the students could have successful productive independent lives but so many times in school were told to lower the demand. Something like a speeding ticket or God forbid a DUI could cause my students to completely blow their noodle over it. And like sure I do things like Superflex and like consequence mapping. But it still just doesn’t feel like enough to explicitly teach them and role-play how to interact with Police. I’m explicitly worried about students who don’t seem to the person like they have autism. So just to reiterate I don’t need advice about how to support my current student. I would like to know if any one is preparing all student students for these life experiences.

I worked with a non‑verbal pupil who relied heavily on BSL to communicate. We started with basic signs for needs and emotions, and over time his confidence grew. Eventually he spoke a few words, and it was one of the most powerful moments I’ve seen in special education.

It reminded me how important it is to give students multiple ways to express themselves. Communication isn’t just about speech — it’s about connection, confidence and feeling understood.

That experience inspired me to create structured BSL resources that can be adapted for different learning environments. I’ve found that having a clear, beginner‑friendly framework helps staff feel more confident supporting non‑verbal learners.

I’m curious if others here use BSL or other communication systems with their students, and what moments have stayed with you.

I think I got a teacher fired and now they have given up teaching and open to work based on their profile.

We had a multipart IEe and it was scathing. All providers were implicated and I think the result may be of financial consequence to the district.

Do teachers get fired if there are fallouts from IEEs. Please tell me it’s not the case and I just think me and my kid are more important than we are.

Hardest part is it was the non tenured newbie teacher who took the fall but the people who should be most implicated are completely unscathed.

I’m a college student and ever since last September I have been seeing a education specialist because I am a slow reader and needed to read for a public speaking class I also sound like a robot and it’s embarrassing The educational specialist has been working with me a lot because he says I’m moving slowly

I can read but it’s slow the only thing was I was in reading intervention for four years in elementary school the specialist says that I may have residual reading weakness (?) (idk what that is)

He says I make progress but slow we’ve tried multiple intervention methods (audio books , echo etc) and it’s helping but very slowly and it’s spikey where I’m worse on some days than the others

As the title states, have you ever taught a sped student early in your career then taught the kids of that student? If so how did it go?

If you are the main teacher in a self-contained special education classroom, how many students do you have in your class? How many teaching assistants or student aides? What is the age range? What type of disabilities do you students have?

I moved to a new school last year and our school is very tight on space, so I've been in a smaller room with a small group of students. Next year, I'll be moving into a larger classroom and will have more students. I've just gotten the final number of students & support staff I'll have, and I'm wondering if this is the norm? This is a K-5 school, so all students are young and have very high needs.

ETA: Thanks for the quick responses! It looks like what I'm being asked to do is totally normal. Around here, elementary schools are very small and inclusion in the mainstream classroom is done whenever possible, so there are usually only a few self-contained students at each school. In previous schools, I've had 4-6 students with 1 student aide. We'd sometimes have another student or two for part of the day. At this school, there are much higher needs (though it's not intentional, just a very low-income area near the hospital) - around 22 students with ASD who are nonspeaking. Two of the classrooms are tiny (meant for small-group pull-out, not actual classroom sized), so there are 5 students in those classes (1 teacher, 1 student aide). The youngest students and students with most severe needs are in those groups. I'll have 12 students in my class, with 1 teaching assistant and 1 student aide. They're all nonspeaking or speak in short phrases, all use AAC, all require support with toileting (so the one student aide will be kept busy!). Three of the students are boys I taught last year, so I have them in a good routine. The others have been in the larger class, and it seems like it was chaos this past year with a teacher who was about to retire. Just seems like a big jump!

Special Olympics banned my autistic family member for having an involuntary sensory meltdown. Has anyone else faced this?

Hi everyone. I’m trying to process an incredibly frustrating situation and see if anyone else has dealt with this.

My family member, Gilly, is a 24-year-old gold-medal swimmer with autism and severe sensory processing issues. At a recent major event, the extreme crowd noise and loud environment triggered an involuntary "fight-or-flight" sensory meltdown, and he screamed.

Instead of helping him or providing a quiet space, the Special Olympics kicked him out and banned him from the upcoming USA Games. They are strictly enforcing their text-heavy "Athlete Code of Conduct," claiming his meltdown was "disruptive behavior." They are treating a biological symptom of his disability as willful misconduct.

To make it worse, they are completely stonewalling us. We have requested the written incident reports and the official paperwork regarding the decision to kick him out, and they are refusing to provide anything in writing.

Has anyone else dealt with the Special Olympics discriminating against lower-functioning or highly sensory-sensitive athletes? How did you fight a ban when the organization refused to give you the paperwork?

Does anyone have access to the ELSB curriculum from Attainment? Does it work well for your students? I have access to Journeys and UFLI in my self contained elementary setting and Journeys just isn't good enough to reach my students with intensive needs. I noticed ELSB was made with adaptations for AAC, which I really like. I have an opportunity to write a grant for curriculum and from research ELSB seems good, but I'd love some opinions.

I’m starting at a new school as a MS SPED teacher for kids with behavior issues. My background is early childhood & elementary, but they just switched me to teaching 5th-8th graders. 8 kids, and they all have 1-on-1 support from a para.

It’s a brand new classroom with zero furniture or supplies. The curriculum will be theme-based and project-based.

My boss just asked me to come up with a list of furniture, decor, and supplies that I want so they can get everything before the start of the school year. Because I’ve never taught this age, I don’t even know where to begin. All I know is that traditional desks aren’t going to be ideal given it’s all ND kids.

What would you ask for if you were me? How would you design your perfect classroom?

Today I had to pick up my student(17yo) early due to an escalation in which she attacked an administrator in ESY. I arrived and my student was in the hallway with a teacher and the admin holding a pad up for protection. de escalated as soon as I got there. The admin suggested to me that I should keep her home the following, day I informed her will see, then she’s threaten to suspend my student if I didn’t keep her home. I proceeded to tell her she would my hearing from my lawyers if she’s choosing to go in that direction and that I was done trying to communicate with her. I’m not really sure how the escalation occurred since I wasn’t even able to ask after she threatened suspension I didn’t want to speak to this admin anymore. We have a bit of history and she is a very dismissive condescending person who tries to belittle your concerns. I need some advice on moving forward. Should I get lawyer involved this has been an ongoing issue with this admin throwing her power around and getting suspended happy instead of trying to resolve issues. The district already has a few lawsuits against the SPED administration on another campus for similar issues.

Now a bit of a back story, this administrator (student parent liaison for sped) is new to the district and I met her almost exactly a year ago similar situation. My student has autism and a BIP, we come a long way but like any other teen during her time of the month her emotional regulation becomes difficult. It is all in part of her BIP since it’s when escalation usually occurs. Last year around ESY she had a major escalation when she attacked staff and I had to pick her up and she was suspended for 2days. I have and always been very understanding and supportive towards the SPED staff because I understand how difficult their job is and I know my student and the difficulties she has. This was a new campus, new staff, with no familiarity and as listed in her IEP new situation can be difficult for her. I was very understanding if the decision and since a trusted staff member who was her behavioral therapist was there I didn’t challenge the decision. She had had other major escalation before and never been suspended before so I honestly didn’t feel any ill intent. Fast forward to the beginning of the school year again as any parent who child had special needs starting school can take some time for adjustment. She was back at her regular campus with her teacher but all new paras. About to weeks in I can tell there is something off with her teacher she seemed more stressed than usual, as I’ve said I’ve always had a good standing with all my students teachers and paras we always communicated any issues and always worked into making a successful school year. I decided to ask her what f everything was ok, she confides in my that this new admin is making very difficult to run her SPED class and that she has voiced multiple time that their is not enough support for the level of high needs students she has. But the only response she got for lack of a better terms was just to “deal with it and make it work”. The following day I get a call that their been an incident and I need to pick up my student. I get there and get my student and proceed to ask what happened that lead up to this incident. I was told she was with a new para and where outside and when my student voiced she wanted to go inside the class room (it was a hot day upper 80s/low 90s) she wasn’t allowed because the classroom was locked due the teacher having to take her prep time. So the SPED student were locked out. My student was upset she couldn’t go to her safe space and was upset after multiple times her prompting her needs. My student threw her iPad and it hit the para. So of course she had to get medical help because she’s an older woman. This upset me because this could have been avoided. Her teacher was not allowed to intervene or notified about what was happening. They told me she was suspended for the following 2 days. I refuse to sign her suspension form because clearly her BIP was not followed. We had an emergency meeting the following day where I was informed that they had offered her another classroom to be in in the time of her request to go inside because of course what person would like to be. Outside in one of the hottest day of the heat wave we were having that week. After a lot of back and forth and the same admin that suspended her previous threatens that well “she can file charges for assault” I told her that’s that was fine the school would be found liable for not following her BIP. Because again this whole situation could have been avoided if the students where allowed to be in their classroom there for putting not only the students but staff at risk. I told them based on the Williams act, they failed the students and staff. After a lot of back and forth the head of SPED department recommended an update BIP since it had been 5yrs since her last one I agree and was notified about the deadline of time they had to do this. I was also informed that the classroom would remain open for all students moving forward and they didn’t know why the teacher had locked it. I talk to her teacher right after the incident since she wasn’t present, she told me she wasn’t even notified about the meeting, which I just assumed she wasn’t there because again they were not properly staffed and needed to be in the classroom. She was very upset about my students being suspended because she was not made aware of the situation or anything. She broke down and told me how it was the school admin that told her the students couldn’t be in their classroom classrooms anymore during her prep time and she had to take her prep without students disrupting. Before she was taking her prep in the classroom with students being present and it was never an issue. Again this a SPED Class not a regular gen ed class. She told me how this new admin was not responding to any questions f her concerns and essentially setting up for failure. And she was very concerned with her students getting enough support. I was not the only parent that had already voiced concerns about how SPED administrator’s decisions that where impacting our kids. They essentially bullied the teacher to take medical leave for the remainder of the school year because the pressure the admin was putting on her. The teacher was always a big advocate for her students and support. Fast forward to the deadline of meeting after new evaluation, we go in by this time I had already been in contact with our local support advocates who was present in the meeting. As soon as the meeting starts my first question was how the new evaluation for her BIP was going because it had already been passed the allotted time they have to complete it. The behavioral therapist looks at me and the admin and ask me what I’m taking about since there was no request to him to preform this new evaluation. I told it was requested by the head of SPED department during our emergency meeting after the suspension and that most off the staff present besides himself and the new SPED teacher where present including the admin that suspended her. The admin tried to say no request as such was made, I told her yes it was and the vice principal confirmed as well that it was.
See I had been in communication with her teacher before she took leave and she told me that she felt they were targeting high need SPED students with BIP plans because another freshman student has been suspended for 3 months because they where having a hard time adjusting and that classroom had a substitute teacher since the beginning of the school year that was not trained in working with SPEd kids and my students teacher had to float between both classes. The previous teacher was also on leave because of the same issues my students teacher was having. She felt that they were being pushed out because this new admin was very condescending and dismissive of the SPED staff. I did my research and this new admin has never had any experience with students in SPED besides her minimal interaction in her previous role in another school district. Basically her job was to come in and see where she could cut cost in the SPED department. Starting with cutting 20 para educators and reducing time for remaining paras in the school district.

Going back to the meeting let’s just say it was pointless because we couldn’t move forward since no evaluation was done therefore there was not much to discuss besides how to prevent any further escalation and how to manage. My students was doing well at this time with minor escalation that were contained and resolved. Because I was very present at school since the teacher that took over I was made aware of issues he’s had in the past. ( made to take leave for being to aggressive) one day she came home with a big bruise on her leg I took a picture of it and asked here para. She told me she didn’t know how that happened but would talk to the teacher. He told me she was hitting her own leg during one of her tough moments (my student hits her head, claps and sometimes hits her leg with her other leg when she’s having a hard time in order to let her frustration out instead of hitting other). The rest of the school year went by pretty smoothly with few escalation.
Again I communicate with her para and teacher and an always available to them whenever they might need me. (I firmly believe that we are a village and I provide and advocate for students and staff all the time)
As soon as ESY started I informed staff and her para since it once again was at a new campus that we were reach that time of month. In her BIP there is special factors. The classroom in which they set them up in is a regular classroom with desk and one big bean bag. Not at all set up for high need SPED students. They set my student up in a separate classroom/office area with just a floor matt. I didn’t say anything because it was the first week. During this time the district took away the access to YouTube from the school iPads. Which is unfortunate because a lot of the students including my own use YouTube, so I have been sending my student with her personal iPad since it’s one thing that helps her stay regulated. This year has been one of the most challenging years dealing with district administrators and I just need some advice.

Which special education teaching job would you go for?

Job 1:

A school you've already been at for 2 years. Familiar, comfortable, knowing you are going to have a wonderful caseload where you already know all the kids and have amazing relationships with them, no behavior issues, 20 minute drive from home (way out in the country), pay isn't the best, expensive insurance premium/deductible. Getting a new principal this coming school year. Doesn't pay more for accumulating grad credits, but will bump up salary once you have a masters.

Job 2:

A new-to-you school, have never met any of the staff or students, have no idea what kind of caseload you'd have. Could be a wild card. Could be really hard. Or could be manageable. Its a big unknown. Pay is better than job 1, more expensive insurance premium but has better coverage overall. The school is in town, in a better location, 15 min drive from home, bigger and better district. More opportunities for longterm growth. They will increase salary for every 6 grad credits I accumulate towards my masters degree.

The hardest part is the change and diving into the unknown. Afraid to make a mistake and regret leaving my school. If I choose job 2, I will miss my current caseload so terribly. And I will miss that comfort I have of not being the new person.