self contained classrooms, expectations and materials

Often it’s in middle and high school that the expectations go out the window, depending much on the teacher and administrative support (if you don’t get support - that admins and/or parents assume you’re setting expectations too high — it makes it lots tougher to bring students up to them) and, of course, the expectations of earlier teachers. It’s hard to tell what expectations there are for your kid in the SC room (just using the same book *can* mean they expect them to learn a lot of the same things, but it can also mean that they don’t want to be bothered with getting different materials, so the kids sit in the class, take turns “reading” from the book and doing handwriting practice putting the words they don’t understand into blank spaces or better yet copying the whole question and writing a “complete sentence” answer — all open book with the teacher and those aides circulating through the room to help them find the sentence to copy out of the book. Wish this weren’t fairly common, but it is.)
WHen you ask him what he learned about on a given day, can he tell you?

Sue, Yes, he is more then able to share what he has learned. For example when I asked him who Abe Lincoln was he was able to tell me which number president he was, what he was most known for, who shot him, and even why HE thought he was shot. He also can freely relay some science facts. He even knows the bones of the body better then his older brother and sister. It seems if he can find a connection he can learn it. He has great difficulty learning things he can not connect. We have found if we have him act out vocab words or some how otherwise see or feel or touch he can pick it up, this is hard with some words. He definitely benefits from multisensory input. What he can not deal with though is “noise” or the feeling of being in open space, or too many people around in other words he is very easily distracted. The reason he is currently in the SC room is because our school is an open school concept. There are no walls or doors except for self containded classrooms. When he goes on to middle school I am concerned that he will remain in self contained because that is where he is at now, but the MS is all closed classrooms.

Our self contained classroom is a mixture of students with a mixture of issues and we sadly don’t serve them well. It’s more of a holding tank than anything else.

I’m delighted to hear that your son’s self contained classroom is a good one. At what point will the ‘high stakes testing’ affect his moving from one grade to another? We don’t have that yet in my state.

I’m a teacher who doesn’t put much faith in any standardized testing. I don’t see how standardized tests relate to real life and I do see how students can do poorly on those tests but yet be successful in their learning.

I counselled myself as a parent and counsel other parents to take it one year at a time. That your son has blossomed in his current setting is a wonderful thing and many parents would envy you. Your son may continue to blossom in self contained and be happy there or at some point you may see the benefits wearing thin. He may come to question why he’s in that room and if he needs to be there or if he would be happier somewhere else. When that happens, it’s time to reconsider his placement. Until then, I’d be tempted to celebrate that you found your way to a happy school setting for your son. I never managed to do that for my own LD son.

I teach a sc, cross-cat class, which means that there are children with all disabilities in the same room all day. Last year I had 14 children, grades 1-5, with only one assistant. It was very difficult to keep up with the various levels of instruction. What I don’t really understand is how your son’s class is considered self-contained. It sounds like a resource room, since the students are in reg. ed. for everything except lang. arts and math. In order for a child to be in self-contained, he must be in the spec. ed. room 51% or more of the day. It sounds as though your son’s school is fortunate to have two teachers and only two grades in the room. If all he’s getting is lang. arts and math from special ed. teachers, I don’t see why he couldn’t be served in resource in middle school with accomodations/mod’s for science and history

I will respond to both Sara and JD here to cut down on responses. Yes, I feel very fortunate to have a good program for my son, but at the same time I see what is up with the older kids. Kids in self contained LD classes to help remediate with the goal of returning the kids to regular ed but then they get the story, you can’t take a regular class because you were in LD classes. This does not happen to all the students but I can’t see how they make the distiction of who can and can’t take a regular ed class. Let me explain. My oldest son took a mix of LD and regular ed classes in middle school, so did his best friend. When it came to make up schedules for 9th grade 1 was told you can only take LD classes because you have been in the “LD track” and the other was allowed to take all regular classes with a resource room. Both boys received the same grades in their classes in 8th grade. My son has been doing well in his regular ed classes and his friend is complaining of being bored in the LD class, just don’t seem right.

My youngest sons classrooom is considered self contained because most of the school day is devoted to the language arts. Students only get 45 minutes of science and social studies a day, specials are only once a week for 30 minutes these include PE,music, library, and computers. We are very lucky in that our school is K-4 only so that is why the self contained classes usually only contain 1 grade level. The only reason 3 and 4 were combined this year is because we have an open school (no walls) and the 4th grade self contained kids needed a closed room as did the 3rd. Most the kids in the 4th grade program fall on the autism spectrum (1 with kanners autism, 1 with Aspergers, and 1 with pdd-nos).

I am probably stating the obvious but if the middle school isn’t an “open school” model then that issue would no longer make regular ed. as unattainable. There are some sound-filtering devices out now that could make all the difference, too.

There’s a general tendency for school folks to advise “down.” This only makes sense when there’s a path back up if/when a kiddo is ready for it, not if special ed is using the too-common “roach motel” model. It’s often up to the parent to be a total burr in the saddle to get a higher placement.