Least Restrictive?

In my tenth-grade core English classes, we’ve been working on writing skills with regard to literary analysis with the triple goal of learning how to find relevant citations, how to use MLA formatting, and how to answer WASL-type analysis questions. One young man in my class has really been struggling with the concepts and doing poorly on the quizzes, even though he understands the literature. I told him after he struggled with one quiz that I would sit down and do the next one with him. He was absolutely horrified at the thought and said, “Then everyone else will know that I’m in special ed! I wish I could just go back to a special ed classroom where it doesn’t matter that I’m stupid.” That broke my heart. He is far from being “stupid,” but that is his academic self image. He didn't care that I had sat down and worked on the quiz with two other struggling students (who happen to NOT have IEPs).

This brought me back to a subject I have contemplated much over the last decade. When I started teaching in this district, our SE kids were mainstreamed. Then the trend changed to separate SE classes. Now the pendulum is swinging back to inclusion models as being the "least restrictive environment" (LRE).

I went to read the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) to gain a clearer idea of what LRE really means in practice, but only found this general wording: “To the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities, including children in public…facilities, are educated with children who are not disabled, and special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature of severity of the disability of a child is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.”

 

So is our teenage need to conform a disability? I have had SE kids in my classroom over the years, and I have seen varying degrees of comfort with inclusion. My first year of teaching, I spent hours writing four different versions of a test because my SE kids were embarrassed/humiliated/ashamed that they required modification. I figured that if everyone had a different test, no one would know the difference. I had learned very quickly that some students would rather fail the same test everyone else was taking rather than have it made obvious that they needed something different. Since then, I have taken various trainings and read multiple books on differentiation (many of which make me laugh at my early efforts to “hide” the modified tests), but none of them are universal panaceas that raise the self-confidence of my inclusion students.

 

What is the solution to this dilemma? In my ideal world, I think I would have the students choose whether they would rather be mainstreamed or pulled out. Who am I to decide whether a student would feel more restricted in a GenEd class, or whether their comfort level would lean toward the privacy of a SpEd classroom? Aren’t the child and the parent (rather than the teachers and the administrators) the best people to answer that?

 

Comments

[Travis A. Wittwer]

Nancy, I am glad to have read that story. It is hopeful. I agree that it should not always be the school that decides. However, it should not always be the parents either. It has to be flexible and unique like the students it serves. If I had to make a statement of some sort, it would be that the group (school/family) most willing to take responsibility for the child's well being should make the decision. In the case of your story, it was clear that the family were willing to take that responsibility.

[Kim]

Nancy, what a great story! Thanks for sharing. That lucky young lady is in a position to receive support from her extensive family for the long haul. What about our kids who don't have that kind of familial infrastructure? I wish there were a clear answer to this question. I guess the point that underlies it all is that we can't assume that every kid is going to benefit from cookie-cutter decisions in a standardized education system. Every kid's story is different, as are their needs and optimum situations. Students, parents, and educators are all stakeholders, and each decision should be made based on the individual stories that our kids come to us with.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Going back to Kim's question--whether students (or their parents) should get to choose whether they're placed in a special education program, or take their chances in general ed, I'm convinced that most teachers would like the school to have control over that decision. But I'm not sure if that's best.

I once had a student who was a middle child in a large family--7 kids. She was the only one of the seven who had learning disabilities. She played in the band, was a good athlete and had lots of friends, but her reading and math competencies were about four grade levels behind by the time she made it to middle school. Her parents were adamant: you are not putting our child in special education. We will take care of her, they said. Her brothers and sisters will help her with homework. We will make sure she reads and computes well enough. It's our job to teach her right from wrong. We will tell her to do her best at school, but not to ever worry about tests or report cards--they don't matter.

A whole battery of core teachers tried to persuade them to give her time in the resource room, or pull-out assistance with reading. The parents would not budge. No labels. No going to the resource room, or being singled out for extra help. While they were appreciative of any gains their daughter made when teachers were sensitive to her struggles, they did not blame teachers when they chose to direct instruction at a higher level. And they went through this battle annually for years, never backing down.

When the parents left the room, the teachers were all tsk-tsking over "grades and tests don't matter." Really, though--this girl turned out to be a lovely adult, fully capable of working at any number of jobs. Her whole family protected her through HS from cruelty and labels. She was a choir member and a cheerleader. I was there when she graduated.

[Bob Heiny]

Bingo, Mark! Your description appears consistent with the earliest and with Federally legislated intents of schooling for students with disabilities. I hope you'll post more examples for teachers to consider.

[Mark Gardner]

Our inclusion classes often have the separate gradebooks as Mark mentioned, but the bigger problem I've seen is that sometimes that when a particular teacher works well with the inclusion students, suddenly the class balance between mainstream and inclusion kids shifts, to the point where the majority are served by SE. In one case I know of, the inclusion class had 16 SE students and 3 regular ed students. To me, this contradicts the intention of inclusion.

It is absolutely possible for a teacher to accommodate the IEP or other needs of a student without it being an obvious stamp on the forehead. I believe there are reasonable process accommodations that are relatively easy to make for any and all students. If the climate in the room is that reasonable adjustments are made based on individual learners' needs, regardless of whether an IEP or 504 plan is mandating such accommodations, then students can see the teacher model "more than one way to learn" and when they see variations in instruction, they understand that it is about providing instruction based on student needs, not just special needs. For every time I make an accommodation for an SE student, I make the same modification for non-SE students who deserve the same support but perhaps did not have parents or other teachers who identified a disability--or who for whatever reason do not qualify for SE services. Obviously, in a class of 32, it is impossible for a teacher to accommodate each student uniquely. It is important, though, to acknowledge that not all accommodations need to be in the gradebook. The principle of being willing to adjust instruction and strategies for ALL students based on their needs, progress, and goals is valuable regardless of whether that student arrives with legal documentation of a disability. That might mean that a group of 10 students gets an additional scaffolding organizer for pre-writing, or a bit more directive feedback. That might mean that you suggest to some kids that it is okay to read the sparknotes in addition to reading the text of the novel you are studying (not in place of reading the novel), or that listening to audiobooks as kids read is recommended or encouraged. These are things that are often parts of HS IEPs for reading/writing, but in fact benefit many learners who do not have such plans. If there is a climate where it is accepted learning can occur in a variety of ways, when SE students and non-SE students alike are provided various means to achieve learning goals, and I think the comfort level for the SE students is much greater.

[Travis A. Wittwer]

Thanks Mark. It is always educational to hear how other states deal with similar issues. Sometimes for greater gain, sometimes not. As teachers, it seems that we all have similar concerns and problems.

[Mark]

This is a huge issue and I don't claim to know the answer. In Wyoming we have another contributing factor to SE in the regular classroom and that is our state scholarship program. To qualify for the scholarship a student must take certain courses and no special education courses count. So a student must take US History but Modified US History does not count. This has led to more and more parents insisting that their child take the regular course and it often times leads to failure. Special Education teachers put pressure on the regular education teachers to grade differently since the student is SE and the administration is upset by students failing the course.

One of the things we have tried to accomodate the LRE part of IDEA is to have SE students in the regular classroom for instruction but they are in a separate SE class as far as the grade book is concerned. These students usually have some type of study skills class where they can go and work on assignments with SE teachers.

[Kathleen Risolvo]

I just had a similar conversation with a few teachers last week. Five years ago, our district moved to a full inclusion district. At this time we moved all of our students that live in our district back into our schools. As a classroom teacher, it was very difficult to differentiate when I was adhering to the traditional tests of student understanding. Now, I am a technology facilitator and I have a hard time picking out those students with IEPs because the assessments that I use are innately differentiated. It is amazing to me that when a student is interested in what they are doing, they can demonstrate their knowledge in a more authentic way. I think we really need to think about how we are are assessing students and not just giving a test.

[Tom]

Great post, Kim; and a great question. All of us who serve students on IEPs struggle with the differentiation balance. How much do we tweak a lesson before it becomes simply another lesson? And at that point, are the students really better off in another classroom? I wish I knew the answer.