Let me first start by saying I applaud the listening
meetings that the district has been having with the ESE staff. They are long overdue
and much needed. However where listening is nice now it is the time for action.
This is what several teachers at the meeting reported.
This is what several teachers at the meeting reported.
At some schools if they don’t like a service usually co-teaching
or support facilitation, because they are expensive, they are simply rewriting IEPs and dropping
the service. At other schools support facilitators are taken away from their
students to sub for absent teachers or to proxy tests and at schools all across
the district ESE teachers report being given impossible schedules and not
enough planning time to fully implement their responsibilities.
Parents of special needs children, please check that your
children are getting the services that they need and deserve.
The district was stingy about giving schools the extra teachers they needed to make class size. Yes, we were up 2000 students across the county, but schools were told to make do with the Spring projections. Instructional coaches, guidance counselors, etc. were put off limits when it came to assigning a class or two to teach. Who got the teaching assignments? The Support Facilitators, that's who. Our SFs spend half their day teaching. After using one period for "planning," which means handling the paperwork and conferencing that goes with ESE, they spend one period--90 minutes a day--in support. DCPS is very lucky they have not been sued in a major way.
ReplyDeleteI am an ESE teacher in a high school. I have experienced first hand where my students are not receiving the services the should have and need. Administration does not care that they have these students floundering in the general education setting without support. The ESE lead teacher is being used to cover classes. The support facilitators are in classes unable to service their students and Administration continues to ignore this fact. On any given day the school has an average of 10 teachers out per day. Parents have been informed so now we just wait.
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