Home and School Communication

Communication between home and school can make or break a students day. It is always nice to know what is going on before the student comes to school and before the student leaves the school. As a Significant Support Needs teacher, I try to make contact with each one of my students parents after school. I also encourage my students parents to inform the students aide on their morning and night. This will normally tell us if the student did not sleep or did not eat. These are two things that are always nice to know to help us help the student get through the day in a productive way. Having an open line of communication with my students parents is also important for working with the students. Something that happened at home can be the cause of a behavior or why the student is acting the way he/she is. Below are some home to school communication logs that can be used.

Inclusion in the general education classroom

Inclusion: Is this the best for ALL students?

 

Inclusion is a huge part of the education world for students with special needs. In my experience with inclusion so far, it is very beneficial for students with disabilities to be around students without disabilities. This is a very tough concept though and some students are not good candidates for inclusion. In my opinion, if a student is interfering with his or her learning or other students learning, this student is probably not a good candidate for inclusion. 

Let me give you a little background on the situation that brings this issue up. At the elementary school that I teach at, we like to hit the 80% or above amount of inclusion time for our students. This will help social skills develop and it will help other students learn to be around and help students who are at a smaller advantage. A lot of the times, it is a good thing for the student with disabilities to be in the general education classroom to get the general curriculum data. I believe they are taking in a lot more information then what we think they are. I have a student who was not in the general education classroom very much at all last year because the teacher said it was a distraction and that the student was not learning anything. This year the student has the same small behaviors of blurting things out with little distraction (same as last year) but is fully included in the general education classroom all but 1 hour/ day. This student is excelling in all areas because of that general education involvement and his peers understand him and want to help him. His teacher is willing to include him. This is amazing to me and shows me that this is a good thing and general education teachers need to have an open mind and be acceptable to situations like this. On the other hand, I have a student who was included 80% of the time in the general education classroom last year, but was also very disrespectful and interfering with other students learning. This year this student is also included about 60% of the day in a general education classroom with the same behaviors but the general education teacher still asks if this is really the best situation for him? I understand the concern that the general education teacher has but I also wonder what is really best for all involved with the student being the main priority. This student does have strengths with in group settings that we like and want more of, but is it the best situation? Where do we draw the line and is it right to put other students learning at rick just so we can include a student with disabilities in the classroom. This answer is obvious to me but is it obvious to the laws?

Inclusion is a very controversial topic with a lot of opinions and facts to each side.  Inclusion depends on the behavior and disability of each student. In order for inclusion to be successful, all teachers and school personal (general education teachers, special education teachers, school administration, and student aides), need to work together to get to know the students limits, strengths, and weaknesses. We all need to know their triggers. We all also need to work together to inform each other about things that might work for the student and then give it our all for the sake of the student and the benefit that this might be that one thing that will help the student excel in a general education classroom.