Professional Responsibilities

My first and foremost responsibility is to teach with passion.  Students should be excited to come to my room, even though we talk about the hard stuff and work on the very nonpreferred academic areas.  

A Special Education Teacher's first line of defense, is great collaboration with Regular Education Teachers.  I believe it's important to learn who your teachers are, what are their stressors and how can I reduce or relieve these.  It might be a bit more work in the beginning, it takes time to develop trust and teamwork, but once we are there, the path is beautiful!

From emails to phone calls home, it's imperative to keep communication logs.  This helps to track overall reduction in negative behaviors as well as building a bridge to your students.  Learning about their family, how and what school means to them, will only help you develop better lesson plans that can engage the whole family.  Keeping Communication records gives you unbiased feedback and a toolbox to return to, should things not go well in the classroom. 

Prepare in advance, know your students.  Understand that this is probably the 5th or 6th meeting these parents have been through where they have heard how their child is not thriving.  Rewrite the script.  Tell them how you want to help their child thrive, show them the fantastic things their student has provided to his/her teachers.  Create goals and objectives that make sense and that are achievable! 

Oh the handcramps you will have!  Special Education is not just about reaching the kids but ensuring that should someone need to take your place, if the student moves, if they transition to a higher grade and different case manager, their records are clear and concise.  They are reliable and reflect the student they are written about.   When it's time for an audit, these puppies are your get out of jail free card!  Document, Document and when you get done with that... document some more! 

Students won't always say what they need, or may actually need something they don't even know they need.  Accommodations may be too complex for regular education teachers to feel confident in implementing. You are faced with bias, stubbornness and overwhelmed teachers.  Be their voice.  If you have taken the time to develop that collaborative relationship advocating for your students should be a very natural and expected process.