Teach Now (Teacher Certification): Special Education Referral Process

Module 2 Unit 3 Activity 3

I interviewed Catherine Shears who is a paraprofessional at Burntwood Elementary School in Thompson, Manitoba. She spoke to Amanda Devlin who is the counselor at this school and Alison Duggan, who is a resource teacher. The following is the answer she provided.

Amanda Devlin: School Counselor at Mystery Lake District

1.      How is a student identified for special education referral?

Burntwood Elementary has a three level system to classify students with disabilities.  Level 1 is severely disabled children. Level 2 would be less severe than Level 1 and Level 3 would be children with high incident learning disabilities. The homeroom teacher is the primary person responsible for identifying students for referral to the special needs program.

2.      Who takes responsibility for the progress of the child before and after the referral?

The homeroom teacher is responsible for the student before a referral is made. Once the referral is made, the responsibility shifts to the resource teacher and the principal, to begin the process of applying for funding for an IEP.

3.      What is the school administrations directive for special education?

At the Mystery Lake District, the directive is to have full inclusion of special needs students into regular classrooms. An IEP is created with inclusion in mind. Students are only separated from regular classes if they display severe disabilities, which interfere with other students’ learning or hinders the teacher’s ability to properly educate her students. For these incidents, Burntwood has several environments created for special needs students. One example is The Blue Room which is an area for children with emotional disturbances.  This room provides a calm and safe space for these children.

4. What provisions are made for students identified for special education?

Burntwood Elementary School tries to accommodate special needs students as much as possible. There are several provisions put in place to assist special needs learners. They have a variety of paraprofessionals in place to provide support to the students i.e. counselors, pathologists, occupational therapists, teacher aids, and even pediatricians, as many of these students come from unfortunate family circumstances. Very often children enter the system with several health problems such as malnutrition. The main provision is an IEP which is created for each student where teachers make several accommodations and modifications to help children with reading, writing, or math for instance, giving them more time to finish tasks, or breaking down tasks into sections.

5. What is the level of parent involvement in referral process and special education?

Before any IEP funding can be applied for by the principal the parents must be informed about the child’s situation and give permission for the school to follow through on a funding application. Often times, Burntwood Elementary School have children who come from difficult family situations where unfortunately sometimes parent involvement is minimal. Sometimes this puts undue responsibility on the support system at the school.

Allison Duggan: Resource Teacher at Burntwood Elementary

1. How do you identify a student for special education?

For level 1 students we have prior notification of them joining our school. For level 2 and 3 students, we look for obvious inefficiencies in academic skills, motor skills and verbal skills. We perform a variety of tests provided by the district to determine the severity of their disability.

2. What are the signs of a struggling student?

Children in higher grade levels that display inability to recognize the alphabet, numbers, or lack basic social skills, usually put up a red flag for any homeroom teacher. Several students come in with verbal and motor deficiencies. When a student is unable to cut paper or use a pencil correctly, these signs are also key factors in determining if a referral for special education is in need.

3. Are there alternate methods of instruction tried out before referring the student for special education? If yes, what are they?

As with any teacher, we would seek to provide modifications or accommodations to try and improve the level of the student. However from our experience, once a student is on the homeroom teacher’s radar for special needs referral, they rarely hesitate to start a dialogue with the resource teacher or principal for the future of their student’s education.

Reflection

As a university level teacher in Korea, I haven’t encountered many students with disabilities. I found this interview really informative as if I do get a job teaching young learners, I will be able to know the protocol if I do suspect a child of having some sort of disability. As an educator it is our responsibility to not only teach our students but really look after them, and be aware if there are any red flags raised.  The university I work for is a private university and they don’t offer much support for disabled students, other than legal facility standards that they have to meet. I sometimes suspect a few students with learning disabilities or behavioral issues, but often times I’m in a predicament to speak with them about it as it is stigmatized in this society and almost offensive or a form of criticism to them if I would bring it up. It is really sad that this is the situation here. I believe that there could be a lot more help and leaps of improvement in this area and it is unfortunate that very little has been done to better these situations for any student with a disability. My recommendation for our university is to have a phone number or make a webpage for the students where they could call or talk to someone via chat, get some counseling, or advice about where they can get assistance and still remain anonymous to their peers.