c/o: Be Nice. Be Kind shirt by Taylor Mill Clothing Company
This community continues to help ground me in my love and passion for teaching. I received over 40 thoughtful questions that are inspiring me to reflect on my practice and collaborate with colleagues. If I shared all 40 answers in a blog post… it would be about 114 pages of my perspective based off my experiences so I’ve decided to break them up into multiple posts…
One thing I realized was a couple of your questions, I had already been working on posts about the question or topic! It’s been amazing to be on summer vacation where I actually have time to blog. I can’t wait to to hear your thoughts, answer any more questions, and continue to get to know each of you! Happy question answering reading!
Q: Is it hard to write your first FBA/BIP and IEP on your own?
A: Sometimes it blows my mind that I write legal documents on a weekly basis… The answer to this question depends on how you best prepare for your first year (or a new role) teaching. I had an easy time writing BIPs and IEPs because I had saved strong examples of FBAs, BIPS, and IEPS from my teaching program. When I sat down to actually write my first IEP, I used the example as a guiding document and then inserted my students information and tailored it to best represent my student. I also had a binder that had solid resources I would refer to. If I had absolutely nothing when writing any of these documents… I would have been in a full on state of panic. Writing the documents definitely gets easier with time and I relay less and less on my resources. With that being said, I STILL use my resource binder. Click here to download some of the guiding documents I use when writing BIPs and IEPs.
Q: I know a lot of being a special ed teacher is paperwork and meetings, especially IEP meetings. Could you going into a little bit of detail (as much as you are able to) about what to expect in those meetings?
A: Honestly, I spent my entire first year dreading every IEP meeting because I was so nervous… and would become frantic before each meeting. I absolutely love facilitating them now. Thinking about what to expect is challenging… because while all the titles and stakeholder roles are the same at every meeting across our country, the actual people who fill those titles carry their own experiences, perspectives, and beliefs about education.
So what can you expect? Passive or aggressive parents. Last minute no-shows. Lots of confusion and questions. Celebrations and collaboration. Statements made that you don’t agree with. A variety of different mindsets and beliefs.
One thing that I have to tell myself before every meeting is everyone is operating under what they believe is best for the child- it helps me keep my cool if things get heated. Also- YOU are the expert… don’t forget that. You can definitely expect that people who don’t actually know how to do your job, know more about your job than you do… Don’t let other people push you around or make you feel like you have to make decisions to appease adults… always do what’s best for the kids.
The coolest thing about facilitating IEP meetings is you have control in setting the tone! To read more about how I facilitate my IEP meetings, click here!
Q: How do you progress monitor and share the progress (or lack thereof) with students and families?
A: For students who qualify in academic areas, I progress monitor every two weeks (always on Wednesdays because they are shorter). For students who qualify in behavior, SEL, or study skills, either daily, weekly, or when things are reported to me. I have binders for each student with all their progress monitoring rubrics and assessments in there. After each assessment, I share the growth or lack of growth with the students after each assessment. We do a lot of celebrating! The progress monitoring data is also shared during our semester progress monitoring reports (twice a year in January and June) and shared during the IEP meeting. Occasionally if students make huge amounts of growth, I will send a positive postcard home or make a phone call. I will usually ask my students what they would prefer.
About once a month I look at data and make instructional changes if needed 🙂
Q: How do you know what the perfect contract/grade level is if you are offered multiple contracts?
A: Multiple contracts? That’s AMAZING! I keep thinking about what I would be considering if I had to choose between multiple contracts… I think I would first ask myself: what program/grade level do I want to teach? For example, I would only work at Title 1 schools and upper elementary resource/self-contained EBD. Depending on the answer to that question, I would think about district/school initiatives, the district/school culture… and base my decision really on the school staff and environment. If I didn’t have access to that, I would look on-line and try to make my best guess. No matter what school you are at– the kids will need you, they will love you, and you will love them… so when trying to choose the right contract or grade level, I would try to focus on your interactions with people from the schools and where you can visibly see yourself celebrating the growth, taking deep breaths on the hard days, and feeling supported– that’s what I would base it off of 🙂
