Special thanks to Alyse Smith, M.Ed., the special education coach & assistant principal from KIPP WAYS Academy, for joining TARA CEO Ian Cohen & education consultant Erinn Cottman on the Instagram Live series premiere of “No Filter” where we dove into real stories, issues, and moves for school leaders looking to level up ahead of next year.
Ensure SPED leader is on school leadership team.
- "If you are not at the table, you are on the menu" - without a seat at the decision-making table, no strategic plan will work for special education.
- Special education is too often thought of or considered “after the fact,” which leads to ineffective planning, deterioration of morale, and ultimately worse student outcomes. The considerations for special education should be integrated into the pre-planning process from day one.
Let SPED take a leading role in creating the master schedule.
- Successful interventions and co-teaching depend on having the time to plan together - no other department is as impacted by the decisions of everyone else as special education, so they should get priority in scheduling.
- The master schedule is a powerful and significant lever for school leaders to wield each year as they look to establish the procedures, routines, and expectations that follow. During pre-planning, it also tends to be something done off in a room somewhere by 1-2 people, which leads to gaps and inefficiencies. Special educators are the one group that are (typically) directly tied into every department, which - when combined with their co-planning needs - makes them an effective group to spearhead master schedule creation.
Develop a clear methodology & philosophy around co-teaching and co-working relationships.
- Accountability and support both depend on setting unambiguous, but flexible expectations - so think deeply about what you envision first.
- Without speaking explicitly about what co-teaching should look like in your department or school during pre-planning, your teachers will end up defaulting to some combination of their personality type, past habits, and the state of their relationship with each other. Not only is that inefficient, but it is also a huge missed opportunity to get two teachers working at top performance to have double the impact on students. A great way to do this is to streamline lesson planning with our tool that provides “smart guides” to nudge your teachers towards collaboration or other expected practices.
Provide guidelines for how co-teachers should use their planning time together - and model it.
- Everyone knows collaboration is key, but that does not mean they know how it is supposed to work or what it looks like.
- It is important to balance autonomy with clarity of expectations, especially during pre-planning when there is time to engage in a real dialogue around what would work best. A set of general guidelines and co-planning goals can be enough of a nudge to move co-teaching teams from static to dynamic and high-performing.
Ensure general educators know where/how to access critical IEP information.
- You'd be surprised how many general education teachers simply do not know where to get the IEP information for their students - and never ask.
- This can be especially true for new teachers, who are unfamiliar with the inner workings of your school and often do not have the confidence in the building to speak up just yet.
Outline different ways co-teachers can "plan for data" in their lessons.
- Teachers know the importance of data, but don't always remember to incorporate the necessary activities or breaks into their lesson to capture it.
- Data is only useful when it is actually captured and then leveraged to inform future planning and teaching. Fortunately, this is an easy fix. Backwards planning examples that include data planning will go a long way during pre-planning to get your teams primed for the year.
Model what "using data" looks like with co-teachers.
- Analyzing data alone versus with someone else creates an entirely new dynamic that is most effective when loose guidance is provided first.
- Varying levels of experience both in the classroom and with data can lead to a variety of interpretations of what data shows and what changes, if any, should be made as a result of the data collected. Modeling these data conversations using past data or even random, non-teaching related data can be a great exercise to build confidence and culture during pre-planning.
Conduct separate observations where co-teaching is the specific focus.
- Effective coaching incorporates the co-teaching dynamic and intentionally building that chemistry to ensure both teachers thrive together.
- Playing doubles tennis is very different from playing by yourself - so it is important that the co-teaching dynamic is specifically discussed and developed throughout the year with intentionality. Our platform makes it easy to create custom protocols for observations to help with specific focus areas like this. A high-performing duo can have an extremely powerful impact on both students and other colleagues who see the energy and effectiveness that can come from two teachers working well together.
Don’t miss the next episode on Instagram - follow us @tarateachers
Did we forget something? What questions do you still have?
Post a comment!
