What should be going on in a Resource Room?

Go to the elementary school. High school resource programs are largely a disaster in part because of the way the administration sets them up. Students at a variety of grade levels and with a variety of needs are dumped in the resource room at the same time. Some are working on math, some are working on a writing assignment, some need a test read………….then the teacher runs about trying to get to everyone before the bell rings. It is a disaster and of almost no value to the student.

If there is a high school resource teacher here on the board who is involved with a good program, please speak up.

Each school is different. There are two approaches to reading rooms. One offers remediation for weak skills, the other supports students in the regular classrooms. I suppose a third could be to do nothing at all.

Your resources room will be what you make of them regardless of the school. A good resource room teacher can be a source of help and support to students regardless of the school’s approach. Now that you’ve seen what you don’t what your resource rooms to be, decide what you want them to be and when you have them, make them that.

We need more teachers like you.

Cole,

Every place needs caring, good, creative sped teachers. Don’t let the example you witnessed discourage you in your career.

Unfortunately, on 3 occassions I have gone to my son’s 3rd grade sped class and observed kids doing nothing and the teacher and the aid just sitting there. It is no wonder I have to pay for private tutoring.

When you observe a classroom, you are only seeing a “snap-shot” of that program at that moment. I teach a Jr.Sr. High school LD Resource classroom. I have 2 periods per day of “study hall”. In the morning period my students are usually always busy with homework- I have worked very hard yto teach them to be responsible for their homework and assignments. If they don’t bring something to study hall to work on- I contact their classroom teachers, parents, and have assigned after-school detentions. I expect them to use this period to their benefit. However, there are days that are “light” homework days- days before holidays, first day back from holidays, etc. We are small school and I usually know who has assigned homework. My afternoon period would seem like the one you observed. My students in that study hall are very responsible- A and B students- only need my help occassionaly- but come to my room every day for its quieter atmosphere and to get help when they need it. They almost always have any assigned homework done by the time the come to my class. On those days you will find them reading the local papers, Sports Illustrated, and other magazines. (it’s the only “Reading” they choose for themselves.)
Others are correct- you will make your Resource program whatever you see is best. Most of the school administrators I’ve dealt with in nearly 17 years of special education had a “hands-off” attitude with the teaching in my room. I have always had a least one study hall period for my students each day, but I also teach Reading and Language Arts- tailoring my program to meet my students’ needs. In the past I’ve also taught high school math, biology, and social studies.
I once purchased a poster that says: The object of teaching a child is to enable the child to get along without the teacher. I’ve changed that poster to read: …enable the child to SUCCEED without the teacher. High School students must be taught that there is no such thing as an IEP in the real world- their success or failure will depend entirely upon their work efforts. Students in most Resource programs have to be taught this fact. I begin in Jr. High- stressing self-responsibility for their homework, grades, attitudes, etc.
Resource programs can certainly be whatever you make of them- it will depend greatly on your personal convictions and work ethics!

Yes, this is true I suppose. However, I still feel that kids who require the Resource Room help at the High Shool may still need to be given direct help in “how to ” do certain academic things…such as research papers etc. I know of some students who were never classified for whatever reason until HS and have missed out on all of the “tricks” we teach to help them become independant. Each room will be different just as each child is different. Even in the elem. schools, you will find differences in how each teacher operates..one will modify the current text in the class while another will teach the specific skill needed in order to have the student gain some ground and not be dependent on modifications…really depends greatly on the needs of the students. I teach in elem. resource and have several grades in my room at once. Another R C teacher in the district only will take one grade level at a time. My schedule doesn’t allow me to do so, or else I probably would do so too - providing on the levels and what I need to teahc them.
So, what I am saying is don’t judge all Resource Rooms by one or two. Like someone said earlier, at least you know what you DON”T like!! Every room should change to suit the individual needs of the students. MAke yours whatever it needs to be!
Good luck!

I’m currently working with college students in developmental (pre-college) level classes. There’s no reason they couldn’t have been doing what they’re doing here (and paying for) in high school — and it’s harder now because they’re used to being passed on through for not being *too* disruptive (unless there’s a really good reason) and doing something that sort of looks like what was assigned. They get very angry when they find out that won’t get them into English 101 and they’re using up finances/financial aid.

The students who do engage are getting the skills - so it begs the question why that couldn’t happen earlier. When I taught resource, it was simply a hole in their schedules that needed to be filled where they wouldn’t bother people (babysitting). I did manage to get enough structure in there so it wasn’t a poker game & snack bar (so they had to leave to do that), and even got ‘em doing some work, but it was a tough row to hoe. It’s a farce to require students to attend school when it’s nothing more than a sentence to be served.

Hi,
I am a brand new teacher, teaching only since November. I am currently pursring a Masters and Certification in Special Education, and am teaching with Emergency Certification in a middle school.
I came in during the middle of the 1st marking period, and until I arrived, my students had only substitutes and no type of formal organization at all, much like the atmosphere you’re describing.
Well, basically it was up to me to develop my students and their learning atmosphere, and I made a lot of progress. I have a lot to learn and a lot to do, but I changed things in their classroom, for the better.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’re the one who can make the difference..don’t look at the bad habits of everyone else. If there are more people who care, like us, we can accomplish a lot.
I hope this ends some of your doubts. Just get in there, and do your personal best, for you and the kids.

I would like to think the first thing would be to get everyone organized have students figure what papers are important or should be thrown out and then like previous writer said talking with the student’s teachers to find out what they need to work on, but it also should practice skills needed in the outside world-filling out job application,taxes,budgeting food,clothing and deciding when to read the junk mail or throw it away.

First, as you have been trained, IEP’s need to be adhered to in a resource room. Children may be grouped according to similar need so that small group sessions may be employed. Remediation takes place in a resource room, specific to need. Learning strategies take place in a resource room, such as how to take a test, how to write a paragraph, how to determine what an unknown word means, etc. Occasionally, tutoring for other classes may take place in a resource room. Assignments may be given with the intent of preparing the resource student to return to the regular class setting.

Diagnosis takes place in a resource room. Counselling takes place in a resource room.

All this to say, what you watched was a gigantic waste of time and our money - a waste of the students’ potentials. But in a world where training and certification of specialists runs second place to making sure every letter and detail of an obscure law is being fulfilled to the nth - the entire spirit of the law disappears - and intervention becomes chaotic, sporatic, and until it becomes nothing - the study hall you observed.

There is some good news for you college students and some bad. The bad news first. Special ed as we now know it is dead. The laws had more to do with killing it than the needs of the students. The inability of the public to finance education with the greed of a litigious society which feels “if I can get the lawyer, MY child will get superior service delivery” in effect saying “to hell, with the needs of the others - I’ll make sure resources go to my own.” (Please believe that I don’t feel all court cases come out of greed - sometimes schools have refused to even try - they have taken the money and refused the services…..Those districts need punishing.) Too many children have been placed into a design meant to deal with five to eight children at a time. In Florida these classes now are sometimes greater in number than regular education classes. Resource rooms for adolescents often have from 20 - 40 students in a time in them. And believe me, the paperwork has all t’s crossed, all i’s dotted. In many districts in Florida, the majority of the certified and experienced special educators do not work with children but work to maintain paperwork compliance. SO, GOOD RIDDANCE - SPECIAL EDUCATION.

The good news: from the carnage will arrive a new model - in effect the original old one. Advocacy groups: LDA, IDA, CHADD, and perhaps the old behemoth CEC will again learn to advocate for children of exceptionalities - and will focus on practice, improving the profession, and training the experts. We know how to teach the children, all children. This world just won’t let us.

So, new guys….take up the mantle from the old…..Fight for your kids. Fight with all you got. Innovate. Design. Know your peers. Attend professional meetings and advocate for what is right. Exciting days are ahead for us all.

The middle school where I teach has three resource rooms, one for each grade. The teachers go into the regular classrooms and the regular ed teachers provide themwith copies of lesson plans and study guides. The resource class may be used at times to complete classroom work or projects. It is mostly used to keep students up to date with their regular ed classes. The teachers go over that days assignments, reinforces skills, reteaches any unlearned skill and keeps students organized. They review and study for tests together, setup notebooks, check homework and provide remedial support for students. I have never been in one of these rooms, and I am not one of the teachers, that the students were not engaged in instructional work.

Ken, some of the difficulty is with poorly trained teachers. However, even well-trained teachers fight an uphill battle at some levels in some situations. This is brought on by overly large caseloads and scheduling problems the admin. won’t work with. In some high schools the resource teachers are dumped upon and literally must attempt to work with a highly diverse group of students (per grade/need/subject level) in the resource room in any given period. When the admin. refuses to prioritize scheduling to create workable resource schedules, then you end up with this “study hall” nonsense in too many secondary schools.

I agree with you that special ed. has been killed. I taught a better resource program pre-IDEA. The state I now teach in had a superior LD program pre-IDEA. There were LD teachers who worked 1:1, 6-8 students per day. Now we handle everything that comes along and are supposed to provide for anything and everything and do it well. We are stretched so thinly, we can hardly get the highest priority things done in a day.

Yes indeed, there are greedy parents who are ruining the system. I read something recently and I liked the phrasing that I will paraphrase. Our constitution assures that we are all equal. This refers to equality under the law with in turn creates equal opportunity. In education and elsewhere the equality is coming to mean “equal result.”

We cannot fix every LD a child has. In 1975 when PL 94-142 was passed, no one expected sped. programs to “fix” every LD or all autism. It was expected that children would receive services to meet their needs and that they would be taught more intensively. There was no promise to fix each child, there was no promise that we would get every LD child ready for college (we try, believe me), there was no promise to parents that their handicapped youngsters would go on to achieve whatever the parents hoped for.

Thank you for your honesty. I have an eighth grader. He spent 2 years in resource room, and other than it lightening the academic load (which was very important) it was a waste of time. My child’s problems stem more from ADD than anything else. He has told me that the children who were struggling with grade level math got most of the attention, individualized tutoring, while he was given busy work and left on his own, or he had the option of reading anything, or doing homework. This was inspite of specific goals in his iep. The reason was that was not flunking grade level courses. There were plenty of kids in the room who were, and are. These are the only ones getting attention. I say attention, bcs much of it, as my son points out are kids badgering the sp ed teacher for answers to tests and graded papers than actual tutoring (although there is a little for some). We are taking away rr as he goes into hs for this and only this reason. He will take extra time on tests before and after school instead, which was all he got out of rr, other than one less class anyway.

In 1976 prior to PL 94-142 (which “grew” to be IDEA) I had from 6 to 8 behaviorally disordered children at a time. I was in close contact with learning disability and mental retardation professionals. We combined expertises to work with the kids by need. We had ample time for mainstreaming. The children belonged to the mainstream, we borrowed them to help. (Now it appears they’ve become our children.) I was allowed to use my professional training to perform formal assessments. I was integral to the staffing process. I was certifed in 2 special education areas (LD and ED) and two regular education areas (secondary language arts and social studies.)

Now classrooms are insanely overcrowded - children are placed into special ed forever. The IEP writing takes forever and even then it isn’t right. Districts kowtow to parents, some of whom haven’t a clue into what their child needs educationally or emotionally while having access to testing done by people who haven’t a clue to what I need in the way of testing to develop an individual plan.

Universities are doing away with core courses while increasing student time on issues of ethnicity, sexual orientation, or divergence in general. Rare work in special ed for such esoteric subjects as reading, writing, math, or behavior management. Those teaching many of the courses haven’t more than five years experience with special ed children - most of their educational experience coming from libraries, journals, or colleagues.

So, huge changes will be coming. This system has just about exhausted itself. How nice it would be to see children’s needs once more come to the forefront. Ken

My recommendation is to start in the elementary setting once you are certified. Although this is a generalization, I see a lot more progress of students when they are younger. Your idealism and efforts may actually be utilized and some hope may prevail to your second year. I teach in elementary (k-5) Resource Room. I can honestly say that I try to make every minute count. My philosphy is that if I need to pull them out of their class, they better be receiving intensive instruction (mainly direct instruction for both reading, writing, and math) most definitely not busy work. This is my 7th year teaching and I still have high hopes and aspirations for my students. I usually exit two students per year which is of course, the ultimate goal. If you continue to observe classes which demonstrate apathy and lack of instruction, try visiting some elementary school sites (or even middle school).

good luck and stick with it, lisa

Ken, I am afraid the changes are going to be more parent-advocate driven changes, not meaningful changes that will create the climate in which we can teach, where we have mentoring, time to test and create plans. Instead more of the same, the demand that we do 3 things at once and keep the noisy, sometimes selfish parent happy. The law is clearly on their side. Then they have the audacity to complain about us when we cannot, simply CANNOT meet their demands for their child. I think it is getting worse before it is getting better. Our current political climate in education is one of threats and punishments. Where are the positive behavioral supports for educators?

Anitya,
I fear what you say is 100% on the mark. I have tried to force changes, beginning as a very parent-oriented staffing specialist (with moderate support from administration - this saved them considerable time when litigation went to zero) and then becoming a state president of CCBD. Thank God parent-driven reform hasn’t completely hit pediatrics and sports. Can you see provisions demanding equal time for all patients - whether ill or not? Can you see parent’s over-riding the doctor’s advice so that major antibiotics should be used for the common cold? Can you see high school athletics demanding all players deserve equal playing time on the field?
“My ODD/ADHD/MH/OHD dyslexic child has not been able to attend the practices because of her identified (or perceived and not yet but perhaps one day in the future being identified) but nonetheless should play quarterback in the big game next Saturday. We naturally anticipate her to get equal snaps to that rich kid you presently coddle.”
We’ve had no respect from the universities, the law, nor the parents when IDEA was written. Teachers were not on the committees and took little notice in the hearings. Therefore no-one even noticed the practical ramifications of some of the stupid things this law demands. For instance, if a child has serious behavioral outbursts of anger in which classmates were seriously injured - all resulting from a serious head injury - and his present IEP has social goals - and the parents protest - a stay-put proviso could force that child to remain under his present IEP with his present placement NO MATTER the imminent danger to the classmates. Of course the district can go to court. Don’t think logic will matter their - many anally retentive judges would enforce the stay-put provisions and threaten to jail any administrators who counter-ordered the court order.
We are not professionals, we are employees. We do not influence our field - even as significant leaders - we barely influence anything in education. Many parents in rightfully advocating for their child, have not seen the deleterious impact of many legal decisions when decisions are made for all exceptional children. The Seriously Emotionally Disturbed child (in my opinion) has a distinct set of personal rights and requirements than the mildly dyslexic child, the Physically Impaired child, or the learning disabled child (if such a label makes any sense whatsoever). Yet our one law - so chauvinistically defended by so many, is meant for all exceptionalities.
Exasperated?? You bet I am. Sad? More so! Serious treatment and equal opportunity of treatment has all but been abandoned in special education in recent years. Thank-you parents. Thank-you lawyers. Thank-you professors. You should apologize for not including recent experience on the front-lines on all of the commitees. If you could find anyone left in the field to apologize to - they’ve almost all moved on - to where work and professionalism matter.

All the more reason why we MUST stay attuned to the current reauthorization, it can get worse.

I was, the other day for the first time, in an unpleasant meeting with a parent who believes I should be sending my aide into her child’s classroom, for various reasons. Naturally she wants this when I already have 3-4 plates spinning up in the air in my resource room, trying to implement the IEPs of the students who are present at that time; too many , of course. You surely can be made, subtly, to feel like a bad guy who doesn’t care about kids when you tell a parent, “No.”

It frustrates me that I am placed in a situation at all where I have to silently try to defend the 12 other children’s IEPs over a possibly unreasonable parent request, a parent who seems to think that I am there to give her daughter 1:1 therapy on every issue imaginable; to the detriment of other students on my caseload.

Oops, I am blowing steam here. All the advocate groups are getting their voices heard. We need to also be heard.

Lisa, I love it when I read success stories. I agree with you about using time, I try to do 3 things at once, so to speak.

Can you share more with us on how you accomplish this feat each year, because I do not? I am working on a theory that caseload size and diversity has everything to do with FAPE. I think that when we are required to handle either very large caseloads or very diverse caseloads (multiple handicaps across widely multiple grade levels) our effectiveness is diminished because just chunking the day into meaningful instructional “periods” can result in the creation of twice as many periods as the day can accomodate, if the goal is to create instructionally feasible groups.

Are you the sole special ed. resource provider in your school? How many students do you typically serve? How many paraprofessionals do you have to assist with this work?

If we are ever to get special ed. to work, we must have working conditions that permit us to do what we know does work….something I do NOT have at this time, nor have I had in my 10 years in my current geographic area.

Amen.

There’s gotta be a better way.

Teachers who can organize and train fifteen to sixty SLD students in a given day have my respect and honor. Out of this horrendous situation will come great materials, fantastic teachers, and a better future. On the other hand, there is a world of misery, frustration, and failure. Those of who care cannot play like Neros and fiddle around.

i go to kinston high school and am in a special education class and we never do anthing in our class and when we do its the same thing we did befor. i have been in the class since the 5th grade and there has not been a challange in my class. when i was in 9th grade i had an (iep)meeting and did not go so my teacher chose my occupation. so know im in the 11th grade and taking an occupational diploma