# of LD students in one classroom

Try scheduling K-6, one resource teacher, one school. Talk about nightmares!!! I envy resource teachers who, at elementary level, only have to deal with two grades.

We have had, at most, 4-5 in one classroom. By the way, many of my 4th-5th graders, esp. the latter, are not that far off the mark, after 2-3 years remediation.

I know your scheduling is a nightmare, I believe you. Nonetheless, we should all count our blessings.

Anitya,
Yes, I agree with you. I’ve been tellling my school how lucky we are. Putting more than 2-3 kids in one class shouldn’t be a big deal compared to most schools. They are spoiled I think By the way, I have 3 grade levels totaling 9 classes but still yours sounds worse. Thanks for the insight!

How do you folks actually service your kids in any kind of meaningful way with that heavy a case load? Our early elementary school has 1 SPED teacher who works between 2 classrooms for each set of inclusion classrooms up through 4th grade. There are at least a couple of SPED teachers per grade. I don’t think there are more than 3 or 4 SPED kids in each of those classes. The SPED teacher is in the classroom for half of each day, and an aide is in the classroom for the other half of each day.

Kids that need pull-out time work with someone else in a resource room during pull-out. We also have a small number of self-contained classrooms, but they vary in number, and grade assignment, depending on what the needs are in any particular year.

In 5th grade, the inclusion classes have a SPED teacher with them all day long during academic subjects, as the class switches between two regular ed teachers. (one for language arts and one for math, science & S.S.) There is also an aide in these classrooms. The SPED teacher uses the “specials” times for any pull-outs needed.

I commend you folks for trying your best, but is it really possible to meet the needs of this many kids this way?

Karen

” there would be lack of higher
level discussions in sci/ss”
I take exception to this comment. LD does not mean retarded! My child scored in the 99 percentile for general knowledge and is regarded as the class expert in science and social studies. I think the regular ed teachers need to be educated about what LD is and is not. Just because a child has difficulty reading and writing does not mean they are stupid or incapable of having intelligent conversations.

In our suburban Mass. (upper middle class) community, the K-5 elementary school has 1 special education teacher and some aides for all the grades; it is total inclusion, no self-contained classes, and that teacher also does the special education evals. So, all grades contain kids with a WIDE range of special needs.

Sounds like you’re not that far from me. I’m in the Metro-west area, again, upper middle class suburban. It amazes me how different things can be from one school system to the next. One thing that is probably different between our school systems is the number of classes that are in the building. I know that a lot of the towns closer to Boston use smaller, neighborhood schools, with 2 or 3 classrooms per grade. We are in a smaller town with only one elementary school for the entire town. I suspect that makes for some economies of scale. I think we have 8-10 classrooms per grade.

Where are the children whose needs cannot be met in an inclusion classroom go? To another school within the district? Or does your school system end up having to pay for a lot of out of district placements?

My question still remains, how can that one person POSSIBLY meet the needs of that many children?

Karen

The resource situation in my school is typical across our district and across most of the area. Our state is cheap. We don’t realize how radically the status quo can vary from one place to another.

Annie, Sue does not think this, she was sharing that the general ed. teachers use this as an excuse to try to avoid having resource students in their classrooms, some do, anyway. Anyone with that view of LD is truly “living” in the dark ages and couldn’t pass ED 101 today.

This whole thread makes me feel like a very lucky person to be in my current district. Anitya is correct about their being such a wide varience of options out there. In my last district there were at least 5 special needs kids to a class without no support for the teacher. The mentality was these kids will sink or swim. It was extremely difficult for these kids to qualify for services of any sort a kid could be 3-5 years behind and they would say that is not far enough. The parents who got services for their kids were the ones willing to fight. When I got to this new district I was ready to do battle again. Much to my surprise they reviewed my childrens records and offered up services. I sat there with a deer in the head lights look-this is not how it is suppose to happen. This district has self-contained classrooms, they also have a special school for autism, and for other severe learning disabilities. They offer LD classes in the home school for kids with mild to moderate LD, these kids are mainstreamed in some classes, but get LD class to remediate their areas of difficulty. They don’t place just based on label. Not all kids on the autism spectrum go to the special school-just those that need too. My son who falls on the spectrum is in an LD instructional class of 10 students in his home school. My oldest son (middle school) with language based LD has a mix of LD and regular classes. His LD classes are to remediate his areas of difficulty. His reading level has gone up by 4 grade levels in a year and a half, his spelling has improved, his verbal language skills have improved. When he moves on to high school there is 4 levels of instruction, self contained LD for students unable to mainstream, regular classes taught at a slower pace with fewer students, average class at usual pace, and advanced classes. They try to have classes where all level of students can do well. Their graduation rate for LD students is over 60 percent—maybe not as high as the regular ed kids but high for this body of students. Why can’t all districts follow this model? Is it that we have such a high tax base-almost $4,000 a year that gets us these services?

Anitya,
Thanks for clearing the higher level discussion thing up. I’m still fuming from that statement that was made by a regular ed. teacher to me (in a round about way) about the disadvantages of having too many sed kids in one class. I have found this board a wonderful outlet for me this past weekend to do something positive instead of turn in my resignation. It’s one thing to think there are teachers who really think this philosophy, but another to really hear it or see it on a memo. I was told not to take comments like that personal. I’m still working through that one. I absolutely love my job and working in this profession, but sometimes it’s hard to roll with it. Thanks again.

Wow Lisa!!! Our school is headed in the right direction, but I sometimes think that we don’t have enough spec. ed. teachers. My caseload is 15 because I am a second year teacher, but I work with about 25 kids. My students are included for LArts, which I don’t believe that all should be included, but there isn’t enough people to do it. I teach math.

But do you feel, realistically, that you can really meet the needs of your students under these conditions?

Karen

Our property (read “school”) taxes are very high in this town too. We moan and groan a little but if I had to choose between lower property taxes and a better school system, the better school system would win out hands down. It’s hard enough to “manage” the system with a GOOD school system. I don’t know what people do in a bad school system.

Karen

I would opt for the school system also. As a matter of fact we have to vote on an increase in our tax to build a new school because class sizes are getting too large. In an average class there is 25-30 students per teacher. The goal is 18-1. They also plan on improving special ed instruction with the hope to have the graduation rate of LD kids go up. This has been a big change in philosphey from the old school system we came from. I don’t know if it made a difference that the school was on a military base? This is our first experience with a off base school system. It was a real struggle to get services while in the base school system. They also had a hard time keeping qualified teaching staff with up to date training. I think teacher pay is lowsey to start with but maybe the military system pays them less and there is less money for programs? Sorry just thinking out loud trying to figure out the difference.

My comment was aimed at Sue, it was aimed at the reg. ed teachers that made the comment to her. I think you are doing a great job Sue.