Is there anyone out there providing inclusion support at the high school level?
My high school decided 2 years ago to do away with special ed resource classes and jump straight into inclusion support only for ld students. This will be my 3rd year to provide inclusion support to special ed students in grades 9-12 English classes. Another teacher provides inclusion support for math. This year we are expanding to include some social studies and science classes as well. My teachers are wonderful and allow me to do what I think is best, for the most part. We do not co-teach because I am spread too thin. Instead I provide support to the students within the regular ed classroom: i.e. note-taking, staying on task, answering questions, some re-teaching. Occasionally I will take one or more students to the library to work more directly with them. I also provide some alternate materials. My school district provided some inclusion training prior to the first year but I was unable to attend because my husband had surgery out of town. Most of the information I’ve been able to find on inclusion doesn’t necessarily fit with what I’m doing. I’d love to compare notes and see what others might be doing.
Re: high school inclusion
Is your school providing the legally mandated continuum of alternative placements? Inclusion is great, but the students should have the ability to have study halls in the resource room if they need it, or even to have a single subject in a self contained classroom (for example, English for someone with a written expressive language disorder).
I have several students included in my regular education classrooms. In fact, most of the LD and ADHD students in my school are in inclusion for most of the day. They do, however, have 1 period in the resource room.
As a regular education teacher who is working on my mild/moderate intervention certification (to add to my mathematics and general science certifications), I highly recommend seeking out a continuing education class on inclusion and teaming.
I am not sure what advice to give you, but it might help if both you and the regular ed teacher helped not only the students with LD but all students in the class so that the more typical students didn’t know who was LD or not. I know I would have been mortified if people in my regular ed classes knew I attended special education English, or example.
high school inclusion
Oh, I should have noted before, there is a good book that we used in a class I took last spring. It is aimed at those teaching in the inclusive classroom. Often it talks to the general ed teacher, but it is also useful for the special ed teacher (which is how it was used in the class I took). Perhaps you might check it out from the library? It is “Including students with special needs: a practical guide for classroom teachers.” (4th edition) by Marilyn Friend and William D. Bursuck
I didn’t care much for the special education classes at my stepdaughter’s high school. So we had her full-time inclusion in general education classes. She had learning disabilities. One of the things that would’ve been great for an LD kid in English class would’ve been an alternative to writing book reports. One thing that I did for her at home was to prepare a study guide for the books that she had to read. A number of questions for each chapter in the book. This required short answer questions or writing of paragraphs as she read the book. I believe if an LD student worked to do such an assignment as they read the book that this should take place of a book report. This is a way of reading the book and writing questions on the book.
Jim — Michigan