A new 6th grade student at our school arrived earlier this year with a massive IEP. He had been an enormous behavior problem at his previous schools - charter and public alike. He had trouble with attentional issues and got in a lot of trouble. One of the goals on his IEP was that he should be able to spend 15 mintues in a classroom without disturbing his peers. Then, we found out that he was reading on a 2nd grade reading level. Not good signs.
Here's the amazing part. The 6th grade team put in place a number of supports, especially around reading. He began getting daily phonics support and started reading "just right books" that were on his reading level. As a result of this attention, he's made massive improvement, improving more than 2 whole grade levels in reading in half of a year. What's more, he hasn't been a behavior problem in the least. It seems to me that many of his behavior problems were the result of being in chaotic schools and having never learned to really be a reader.
My question is this: Did this student really need an IEP? If he had been at our school or a school like it in the earliest days of his education, would he have been on an IEP? I don't know him well enough to know the full story, but you have to wonder.
Charter schools are often critiqued for not having as many IEP students. But maybe, just maybe, district schools have too many -not because of schools choice, but because sometimes kids just need a more structured environment or a little more support than a teacher can provide with 25 kids in a class. I wonder if sometimes students who get labeled in district schools wouldn't really need those labels in a different envirnoment. Not all of them, of course. But maybe enough to make the percentages a little more equitable between district and charter schools.
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Maybe we should stop arguing about who's better and who's ideology is right and start talking about what works.
ReplyDeleteThank you for an inspirational anecdote about a child who is finally getting the attention he deserves.
We certainly should condemn any charter school that isn't up to its standards and doesn't treat all children as the precious beings made of crystal that they are.
But more importantly, we get nowhere unless we share specific interventions and policies that actually help kids and families move forward.
Congratulations on helping this child to feel successful. I think the problem is not the IEP specifically though, but how it is implemented. Essentially what you describe the school doing is providing the specific support the child needs to close the gap between his capabilities and his performance. This is EXACTLY the purpose of an IEP -- so it sounds like this student does need one. However, if the supports and goals in the IEP are not appropriate, then it won't make any difference. I think there is a benefit to testing students for IEPs to understand better how they are learning and what supports they need. I also think IEPs are useful for getting students support in settings outside of the confines of the school (specifically formal testing situations). In an ideal setting, I think what you are doing falls under the auspices of a good IEP, not outside of it.
ReplyDeleteYes i agree with you, this boy is either a genius who jumped 2 grade levels in a 1/2 of year or he was placed into an iep wrongly!! I believe it sounds like the ladder! I also think this is happening alot and needs to be looked into. If you place a child into a class such as an iep class he or she should not be in this would also cause the child to misbehave. Also i would have to question why he was not making this progress in is original school? I dont think anything changed with the child it was probably the mentallity of the teaching!!!! To put it nicely
ReplyDeleteSo, basically, the IEP helped the student succeed, so the problem is too many IEP's?
ReplyDeleteThat makes no sense, whatsoever.
No, it wasn't the IEP that helped the student succeed. The suggested interventions in the IEP were either not necessary or not helpful because the student didn't actually have the diagnosed problem. Rather, the student was behind academically and was acting out as a result. The behaviors were not caused by a disability. When the root of the problem was determined and remediated, the problem went away (disabilities don't disappear when a child learns to read).
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