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Train Wreck - No Pictures, Please: Where is the collaboration?This speaks to the gen ed and special ed relationship.
I’m frustrated. I’m wondering how gen ed and special ed teachers collaborate on an IEP. Sometimes I think that teachers don’t know how important of a document an IEP is. It takes a lot of time and hard work to write the 35+ page case report,…
Im not sure what state you’re and what your IEP requirements are, but in Texas we have a section of the IEP called a PLAAFP (Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance) and base all of our goals off the areas of need identified in the PLAAFP. Contributors to the PLAAFP are the gen ed, spec ed, and any other certified personnel that works with the student; specialists, speech path., counselor etc. What I do to get my collaborators on board is: I meet with them at the beginning of each grading period to see what their schedule looks like for the upcoming weeks. I ask which days they stay late, or have free for planning, so that I can gage when to send my standard PLAAFP email (which ill elaborate on later) and book ARD pre-meetings or staffings. I also ask them what time works best for them in terms of booking the actual ARD meeting. Usually they like that I am considering their schedules, so it gets me on their good side and makes my job a whole lot easier. Next I send them the student’s PLAAFP from their last annual ARD (unless this is an initial), so they have something to build off of. This makes there job a lot easier. I also build sections and sentence stems into the PLAAFP so that they can fill in the blanks. For instance, I would fill in the reading section, so that they would just have to insert the reading level, WPM, etc. This way they refer to their notes, find the section on the email, fill it in and move on. Most of my co-teachers are appreciative of the effort that I put into scheduling and planning, that I rarely get any push back when it comes to these tedious but necessary tasks. I hope this helps a little bit…if not shoot me a message, and i’d be more than happy to clarify or publish an example.
