Dominique Williams

EDUC 5392
July 5, 2020

Special Education Services:

Westfield High School

Westfield High School currently provides Special Education services to roughly 300

students who receive services directly on campus and off campus in various locations. This

department is the largest department on campus and throughout the entire district. Currently we

have a Department Chair, Team Lead, Compliance Specialist and one Administrator who

collectively lead the department. The department is divided into two sections based on the level

of support provided to the students, and they are Inclusion and Community Based Instruction.

There are 14 In Class Support teachers, one SILC teacher (Structured Integrated Learning

Community), two Adaptive Behavior teachers, one PASS teacher (Positive Approach to Student

Success), and 9 Inclusion Paraprofessionals,12 CBI teachers and 24 CBI Paraprofessionals.

Initial Evaluations don’t occur very often on the high school campuses, so we tend to

have several Review of Existing Evaluation Data evaluations. Two years ago, the district

changed the framework of Special Education and we are still in the process of adjusting to our

new roles and responsibilities, which has resulted in some testing’s not being completed on time.

This change has taken the diagnostician off campus to focus more on testing and shifted the

responsibility of preparing and facilitating the ARD meetings to the case managers. Since this

change has occurred, ARD meetings don’t always start on time and they aren’t always

productive for several different reasons. I find that ARD documents aren’t really effective to

meeting the students’ needs all the time and the teachers don’t really pay much attention to the

documents.
Dominique Williams
EDUC 5392
July 5, 2020

Spring ISD doesn’t offer Resource classes on high school campuses, so our Inclusion

efforts include students receiving assistance from special education teachers in the general

education classroom. We provide support in all core classes for the inclusion students and

support from the paraprofessionals in the elective classes for our CBI students. Teachers receive

the students’ IEP documents via an electronic portal and they are required to review, sign and

print the documents. The teachers often don’t read the paperwork or receive the paperwork for

several different reasons, so the students are not receiving the required supports and

accommodations.

If I were the principal, I would restructure the entire department by first creating a new

Master Schedule. Currently the inclusion teachers support three to six different classes and

contents along with Case Managing 13-15 students. The teachers are not able to be effective

currently because we are stretched in several different directions, this evident by the lack of

academic progress in our students. My plan would be to create grade level communities. On each

grade level community the teachers will be responsible for working together to service the

students and prepare their ARD paperwork. For example, the ninth-grade teachers will be

responsible for all ninth graders and the students assigned to their third period class will be the

students that they case manage. This plan will create a mini PLC and allow the teachers to see

and teach the students that they are preparing ARD’s for and the other ninth grade team members

able to provide information on that students’ progress in other subjects.

I would also work to make more systems within the department, starting with the

enrollment process. Several students slip through the cracks during this process and this needs to

be corrected. Our department is very large, so I would hire one administrator that is competent in
Dominique Williams
EDUC 5392
July 5, 2020

special education and fully dedicated to the department. I would also hire a counselor who would

only focuses on students who receive special education services. Lastly, I would provide more

hands-on instructional coaching for the sped and general education teachers. Most teachers are

not aware of all of the different strategies that could be used to provide an equitable education to

all students. Our students are not making academic progress because of the lack of systems in

place, I believe we must manage our resources better and it will yield success for all.