leadership in high schools

Earlier there was a comment about how schools have not quite tapped into the full potential of Teaching Assistants within the instructional programs.  Here is an example of how the role of the Teaching Assistant within Special Education at the Hewes Center is being exploited to maximise classroom instruction as well as provide a safe school climate for students, teachers and staff. 

The Special Education Teaching Assistant acts as a liaison between the antecedent student behavior that may occur in the classroom and the deescalation of the student before re-entry is sought back into the classroom for the student.  In other words, a quiet time-out area is quickly provided which allows students to check their negative behavior before or after it has occurred.  The embarrassment of the student is not further compounded by the teacher interrupting classroom instruction to deal with one student and the student can immediately regain their composure and save their day, by melting down in another area away from the source of anger/contention.  In this quiet area, the Life Space Interview with the student can be conducted by the Teaching Assistant.  Here students are taught to identify what triggered them, what their response was, what  their behavior led to and what will like be the administrative consequences.  The goal of this process is to give students a quick reality check, salvage lesson time and reconnect  the student to the teacher/classroom/instruction.  This process is vital to student growth and appropriate internalization of the cause and affect of negative behavior on individual learning and school climate. 

Some might argue that counselors/social workers are able to adequately provide this service.  However in the BOCES model, counselors and social workers provide mandated services to students.  Their schedules might not always be open to dealing with student flare ups that occur throughout the day within a classified population made up of ED, LD, autistic and OHI students.  In addition, it must be noted that mandated services are viewed as providing opportunities for the attainment of long term goals based on past history and future expectations.  The student who is receiving mandated counselling on a weekly basis may not always want to address the errant behavior that he/she displayed minutes ago in the classroom with the counselor because this scenario calls for the reality therapy approach,  the down and dirty - what happened, who was involved, what was your role, how are we going to fix this today within the next 10-15 mins. because the student has to return to the classroom.   Mandated services within counselling allow for longer times for student reflection and joint school-student-teacher-community goals that can be attained over a longer period of time as stated and measured on the IEP and as recorded on report cards. 

Student Life Space Interviews (source Crisis Intervention Training) conducted by the Teaching Assistant inform counselors and teachers about how students are responding to instruction and socialization within the school setting.  Data is generated to inform PLEP statements on the IEP as well as provide information to Child Study Teams that work on addressing student success. 

If students are unable to attend to class within the lesson period, instruction is provided in an individual setting by the Teaching Assistant.  In addition, familiarity with classroom routines and lesson plans at various grade levels allows this office to provide substitute teaching when classroom teachers are absent.  This position and others like it, within the instructional programs of BOCES is a valuable in terms of maintaining a stress reduced environment for students and teachers.  Angry students cannot learn.  Teachers whose classrooms are disrupted by angry students, cannot teach. 

There are times in the day when the school is quiet.  The OSS/ISS room is humming with the sound of quiet study and no crisis is imminent,  during these lull periods, the Teaching Assistant  is pursuing research for teachers on the Internet to inform instructional practice  and  broaden the scope of  instructional programs to inform educational practice.  A case in point is the support provided by the Teaching Assistant to teachers who have written specific behavior plans for students that are followed throughout the day. 

The role of the Teaching Assistant within Special Education continues to evolve and grow to meet the needs of the program.  Teachers and Staff have a reference source to refer students to and are provided with an intermediary office to address student behavior that is unacceptable and needs to be isolated immediately, before administrative action is necessary.  More team discussion, more utilization by teachers and more refinement of this role based on data driven decision making, will continue to work for the benefit of a safe school climate for students and staff. 

A teacher call came via this blog. to examine the needs of two High School students in a 1:8:1 BOCES program located within a school district.  Visitation was set up for a center-based High School English teacher of Special Education, to meet the students and discuss the educational issues associated with the 1:8:1 placement.  In the one case, the young man’s behavior and current academic issues warrant more restrictive placement based on the fact that smaller class sizes with more concentrated doses of academic information can be tolerated by the student.  In the second case, a young girl, the issue is not behavior.  The girl is integrated into general education classes without support or very little, from her special ed. teacher/classroom.  Her attendance is suffering and there may be indications that she is beginning to slowly separate from her former definitions of success because she is in a mixed ability/classification classroom, where some like herself and the young man are tolerating gen. ed. but other students are unable to leave the classroom for any form of integration because of the large academic and social skills divide between spec. ed and gen ed. 

The question is, what should the class configuration be for these two students in order to fulfull their post-secondary outcomes?  The answer lies in the Transition Planning process.

 Within Special Education, the answer in my mind should be one involving  sorting and predicting.  Sorting and Predicting is a unique feature of Special Education which involves a student centered instructional team approach which includes the family.  On the IEP this section refers to the career planning portion:  anticipated post secondary outcomes.  This is the Transition Planning Process which begins at age 14 for every student with an IEP. 

The 1:6:1 high school model available at the Hewes Center is intended to meet the needs of students who display both educational and behavioral issues caused by stress imposed in larger classrooms which affects both behavior and academic output.  The students should typically be Regents diploma bound and have the opportunity to pursue a CTE  subect  eg. culinary arts, health assisting, auto body, graphic arts, instructional technology, small animal science etc.

The 1:8:1 high school model at the Hewes Center is intended  for the student who needs to be self-contained but can access a Career and Technical Education subject (CTE), can explore work experience in the community or on campus.  The student should be IEP diploma bound with full access to Regents level course material since all students in this model will take the Regents/RCT exams in the four core subject areas. 

The two students described above are both showing indications of being interested in a CTE vocational subject.   Therefore, planning involves examining what educational programs are available to them within the BOCES. 

As an aside, I believe that if a special education student is successfully (meaning he/she can tolerate integration with little to no evidence of disrupted learning/behavior that impacts self or others) integrated into gen. ed. classes for academic purposes, that student should require very little or no support from a special education teacher/support system eg. aides.  This thinking is supported and reinforced  particularly at 11th and 12th grade level where Special Ed. students are able to access CTE courses without consultant teacher services. 

 If the student is not able to function independent of the special ed. teacher/classroom supports, then this student should not be integrated.  With regard to BOCES students in district based programs, integration into gen. ed. should be considered (see earlier ref.) unsuccessful if the student cannot “stand alone without special classroom supports being provided by the self-contained teacher, and  in deference to the students needs, other BOCES options should be explored like Center Based programs which would fully expand the opportunities for individual student success based on their stated post-secondary objectives. 

I received a telephone call from a middle school Principal this week inquiring about the possibility of one of his 8th grade students visiting the program. He said that the student has friends that attend the BOCES program and that this is possibly why he is interested in it.  The Principal wanted to know what I thought of the idea.  Here is my thinking as discussed in the phone conversation.

1.  If the student tours the program he is likely to not want to return to the home school.  This is because he will find more kindred spirits attending in addition to his friends.

2.  Why is the district considering the tour?  The answer here is that the student is very bright, is regular ed, can do all the work but has an attendance problem.  On further quesitoning, I learn that  the student is suspected of hanging out with some anti-social characters and might be exposed to illegal drugs. 

In my opinion, this student should be referred for an out of district placement immediately because, I am confident that teachers, counselors and administration within the school district, have tried everything to show this student and the family the path of failure that is being pursued.  In addition, I believe that any student who is showing signs of marked failure in this case truancy, suspicious behavior that might be indicative of illegal drug usage, indifference to all home and school rules, is in crying out for a different approach to education and life skills training.   This student needs to be removed from the general school population because this student exhibits behaviors that will alienate him/her even more from his peers in the home school.  In my opinion, this type of student does not need a tour but an immediate referral to out of district placement.  We as educators need to try something different.  FAST.  To SAVE this student.  This student will join an 8th grade cluster within the Alt. ed program.  The cluster is currently made of two students, who receive daily mentoring and reality therapy from the full time counselor.  The level of intense supervision and daily exposure to a school wide positive behavior intervention program is crucial to the success to students within Alternative Education.  Their first cry for attention was the truancy, the negative peer group, the anti-social behavior patterns which immediately got the attention of school faculty and staff.  The sooner we intervene with this type of student the better the outcomes for graduation and that positive social-behavioral interventions will be internalized 

Kudos to the Principal and teachers in this school district for asking more questions from others in the field of education.    

Tuesday, November 27, 2007 Dr. Lyle Jensen is coming in to have a conversation with the Hewes Instructional High School Faculty.  Lyle started his career in the Pioneer School district and has remained active in his life after retirement.  In addition to the lecture series that he is in engaged with throughout the country, he is also a sitting member of the Panama School Board.  Dr. Jensen has an extreme passion for the underdog in our schools, the Alt. Ed. student who is often times forgotten and rejected before being indentified for placement in a program outside of home school districts.  I think it will be a change of pace for the High School Faculty, who represent both Alt and Spec. Ed.,  to hear an Alt. Ed. pioneer educator (no pun intended) who in his words, worked Alt. ed. before it became a popular “dumping ground” for students who do not quite fit in.    

Last week I attended a Faculty meeting at Ripley Central School.  I was there by invitation to speak on behalf of the instructional programs housed at the Hewes Center, Erie 2 CC BOCES.  As a precursor to my formal introductions, the High School Principal, Sue Hammond, had taken my suggestion and asked the Faculty last month to watch Sir Ken Robinson a presenter featured on TED TALKS ( Ref: Google this).  I am always humbled by these opportunities to address school audiences or for that matter any audience, especially when I am speaking about what I am so passionate about - education and the programs I work with at the Hewes Center - Alternative and Special Education.  I am humbled not on my own account alone but on account of the weight and responsibility I bear when I speak for the Faculty and Staff I work with.  I know that this Faculty and Staff keep me motivated, teach me anew every day and demand that I be an excellent leader and speaker!  So here goes……..in writing.

I spoke to the Ripley Faculty as one educator to another. Who is the Alternative Education student?  I shared with the Faculty our philosophy, our organization, our school culture, our successes and our sad failures.  I talked of the need to identify students early because this way we can return students to their home schools and local communities faster.  Early identification always means fewer drop outs;   this has been played out time and time again  in  our BOCES .  Rural Schools fight three battles in my mind -  poverty,  lack of lack of social opportunities to interact with other young people and dysfunction caused by a distressed family structure that provides little stimulation for the growing mind.  My message to the Faculty is that together, we as educators, whether we are located in component schools or in our BOCES, are fighting an uphill battle to reclaim our youth, invigorate our local communities and stymie the brain drain from Western New York.  It is my contention that educators, politicians and tax payers in Chautauqua County need to pay attention to the Alternative and Special Education Student populations that we work with because these young people are not as mobile as their honor roll counterparts.  These student populations tend to stay home and attend local colleges.  They tend to return home and invest in this county because they are familiar with its norms and because they value family despite how many times this institution has disappointed them.  Our collective future are these youth.  I distinguished between the Part 100 Regulations and Part 200 Regulations that guide our practices.  In essence the Alternative Education student is made up of regular, special ed classified with general education integration and 504 plan students. 

Surprises for the Faculty at Ripley:

We do not have a standing Library or Librarian on our campus?  Ans.  We have direct access to the wealth of the BOCES media and resource library.

We are not a school.  We are a BOCES cooperative.  The social dances, sports teams, music and dance programs exist in public schools.  Our BOCES programs cannot fully replicate the school community because our students are drawn to us from all over, hence the student is not in essence a BOCES student but a Ripley(or any other school district)  student and all social and sports affiliations need to be made with reference to the home school not BOCES.  This is why at all in-takes, our students are encouraged to maintain full communication with, and take advantage of, opportunities in their home schools. 

Referring a student to the administration for an out of district placement is a huge professional responsibility and has to be guided by much deliberate thinking and research.  This is because the suggestion to seek an out of district placement means that the student is going to be placed outside of his local and school community and with that, social interactions and opportunities to form connections in the local community are interuppted. 

Students who attend BOCES are always the students of their districts.  We recommend credit, we do not award it nor do we hand out graduation diplomas. 

My time spent with the Faculty and Staff of Ripley Central School was rewarding and refreshing.  The warm welcome I received will sustain my work this year.  Ripley Faculty who are interested in our BOCES programs have been invited to seek professional opportunities to visit our Hewes Center.