Inclusive Practices
To the maximum extent appropriate, children should be educated inclusively in the general education classroom at their home campus. Children both with and without disabilities benefit from inclusive practices through increased resources and diversity in the classroom. Inclusive practices result in better outcomes for students including better academic performance, gains in adaptive behavior, and improved social relations.
Requests:
- Establish a clear policy for students in special education for meaningful inclusion and differentiated instruction and an openness and desire to serve students in special education on all AISD campuses.
- Conduct board work session on special education and inclusion and identify goals and metrics related to special education in board priorities, strategic plans and superintendent scorecard. Increase accountability in special education.
- Adopt an inclusive teaching model that includes Universal Design for Learning (UDL), co-teaching, and peer supports to maximize opportunities for students to be learning in the least restrictive environment and to allow typical peers to benefit from diverse learning and for students receiving special education to benefit from typical peers.
- The responsibility to educate children with disabilities should involve all members of the school and classroom. Provide training to administrators, general education teachers, in addition to special education teachers and paraprofessionals on inclusive teaching to include differentiated instruction, co-teaching, and modifying and accommodating the general education curriculum. Also include special education staff in general education training and planning.
- Identify and empower inclusion champions and facilitators that can promote and lead to a culture of inclusion and appreciation of diversity in our schools and across the district.
- Increase a child’s ability to be educated at their home school and to build and maintain crucial social connections and community.
Staff Recruitment & Retention
Dedicated and well trained staff are the most important element to producing successful outcomes for children with disabilities. Addressing recruitment and retention of special education teachers, paraprofessionals, LSSPs and therapists is critical. We need to provide competitive compensation, appropriate training, and maintain reasonable workloads to retain and attract quality special education staff. We also need to improve leveling practices to ensure stability for both staff and students.
Requests:
- Climate survey for current special education staff, former special education staff, and special education families. Anonymous exit surveys for staff that have departed.
- Increase stipends and provide other incentives to attract and retain special education staff.
- Provide teaching assistants with ongoing job-specific training.
- Provide ARD facilitator training for all of its case managers who are also teachers and ARD facilitators.
- Train all positions on Positive Behavior Interventions and Trauma Informed Care to provide early intervention and reduce to school to prison pipeline.
- Trust special education professionals and school administrators on setting workloads over software packages and onerous data collection methodologies that distract from providing instruction to students.
- Improve workloads by updating policies/practices/procedures to ensure staffing models and scheduling are student centered and do not penalize full inclusion and mainstreaming of students.
- Minimize impacts of leveling by establishing minimum special education staff levels per campus type and setting maximum ratio for IEP case load (1:15). Special educators want stability and to know their position is secure at their assigned school.
- Allow teachers adequate time to prepare IEPs, support ARDs, modify curriculum, provide accommodations, and coordinate teaching assistants, general education teachers, therapists and other support staff.
Bilingual Support
Students with disabilities whom English is not their primary language should be provided opportunities for bilingual education and participation in dual language programs. Students and their caretakers should have timely translations and support in their native language for IEPs, ARDs, and other school communications.
Requests:
- Streamline support for bilingual students in their IEPs, ARDs, and related special education activities. Implement technology that creates ease of access to documentation in home language, especially for Spanish speakers that make up such a large amount of the special education population.
- Ensure that Special Education department and Multilingual Education Department are working to best serve students who are bilingual.
- Bilingual students receiving special education should be provided the best bilingual education possible, including by being included in dual language and late-exit bilingual programs.
Transparency and Open Communication
Open and transparent communication is critical to improving special education in Austin ISD. Cooperation between administration, staff, parents and the community is a powerful tool. Students receiving special education should have a strong voice in school change and equity activities.
Requests:
- Students with disabilities should be a prime consideration in the school changes discussions, including staffing, continuum of support, inclusion and how special education programming and services will benefit from AISD’s proposed re-imagination, reinvestment, and reinvention.
- AISD Special Education department should be open and transparent on current and proposed policies, procedures, practices, and guidelines, including budget, programming academics and staffing.
- AISD Special Education budget should be available publicly and broken down by category including costs of mediation and litigation, contractors, staff by category, software, and other subcategories.
- Most parents do not know who to contact, at their campus or district level, if they need support with special education.
- Parents should have access to a special education orientation or workshop on their school campus so they know what to expect, how to read an IEP, participate in ARDs and become engaged in the process.
- The AISD Special Education website should be updated with relevant and useful information for parents and community partners.
- Parents and the Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) should have the opportunity to review and provide feedback on proposed policy/practice/procedure changes that may be presented to the school board.
- SEAC meeting minutes should be shared with the public and notification of meetings should be widely available.
- Increase role of SEAC to suggest improvements to special education services and better promote the committee.
Other Key Issues
Middle & High School Transition – Transitions from one school to another is a significant and often stressful event that requires support and outreach to ensure successful results for students receiving special education.
- Ensure that all schools have information about special education clearly provided at their own open houses and at middle and high school choice fairs.
- Consider bridging opportunities where students moving from one school to another can visit that campus, shadow students, meet teachers, and become familiar with their next school.
- Provide campus options at the middle school level with smaller populations and class sizes similar to Garza at the elementary level.
BCBAs Observation – 3rd-party service providers, including by Board Certified Behavioral Analysts (BCBAs) contribute important expertise and knowledge that benefit services to children. BCBAs already follow strict HIPPA and FERPA guidelines and consent to district confidentiality agreements.
- Introduce uniform policy to allow 3rd-party observations, including by Board Certified Behavioral Analysts (BCBAs), which provides additional support and expertise to benefit services for students.