Hannah Willie

Reflection #4

At Helen Keller Elementary, there is a very cohesive staff. This allowed me to meet many

different teacher and become familiar with how different classrooms function. One teacher in

specific that I was able to meet with was the special education teacher who gave me insight on

the IEP process. While I am in a kindergarten class, there were no students who were brought

up yet for IEPs but, Amy explained that she relies heavily on date collection when tacking

student progress. She uses behavior charts, para support in their general education classroom,

and movement break routines. Amy went on to give me a specific student example who uses a

clipboard that have his scheduled times and breaks in the resource room. This helps with

transitions and gives consistency.

The process at Keller in which you refer a student you suspect may have a disability is

very explicit. At the classroom level, the teacher is to talk to he/she’s teammates to ask for

suggestions and informally come to Amy for ideas to try. The next step is a BIT (behavior

intervention team) where you meet to get specific strategies and set up a plan with a

timeframe to check back in. If there are no improvements seen, there is a referral to the

guidance team where the the teacher completes formalized paperwork to document the steps

they tried and why there is concerns. This paperwork is available to the guidance team and

parents. From there, there is meeting regarding the next steps and professional referrals.

Lastly, there are assessments that Amy uses for evaluation and progress monitoring. On

the academic side of things, she does informal assessments at the beginning and middle of a
lesson and a formal assessment at the end. These closely relate to the curriculum. She also uses

the students specific monitoring tools that relate to their IEP goals like more time or simpler or

modified concepts. As far as behavior, she assess through data collection.