Gianna Sicola

Professor Suk

EDUC-230-02 Education Field Experience

November 2021

The Child Study Team’s Role during the COVID Era

What new vocabulary, or "teacher talk", did you gain from this video?  And, what does it all

mean in your own words?

Though I have heard some of these terms and roles prior to this interview, I didn’t

necessarily know what each thing meant. Some new terms and roles I learned were child study

team, learning disabilities teacher consultants, school psychologist, school social worker, IEP

and case management.

- Child Study Team: this is a team of three professions (psychologist, social worker,

LDTC) in the school that work closely with students with disabilities and evaluate

them for educational purposes.

- Learning Disabilities Teacher Consultant (LDTC): this professional supports the

special education teachers and has the opportunities to evaluate students from inside

the classroom; they also have the responsibility to conduct educational evaluations for

students.

- School psychologist: this professional helps students with behavioral issues, and also

conducts tests to evaluate students psychologically

- School social worker: this professional is supposed to look at the social history of a

student (from birth to present) for this initial evaluation; they also conduct
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assessments to understand more about the student (such as interests, goals, etc.); from

this information they are able to help develop an educational path for the student

- IEP: individualized educational plan; this allows for parents, teachers, professional

services, and sometimes the student themselves, to work collectively to produce a

specific educational plan for that student

- Case management: ensuring that the services the student is receiving is accurate for

that student depending on their assessments, evaluations, etc.

There were three distinct roles of the CST discussed in this video.  Who are they?  What do

they do?

The three distinct roles of the Child Study Team are the school psychologist, school

social worker, and the LDTC. I did define what each role did in my above definitions, but I

will give a brief description/overview of each one to reiterate. The school psychologist

evaluates students with behavioral issues psychologically to see where they fall in terms of

services needed. The school social worker is someone who tends to the social aspect of the

student; they evaluate their social environments (at home, in school) and how they react to

them, as well as their interests, and then provide services to help them. The LDTC is

someone who observes the student and helps determine what services the student will need;

as described by Jeanine, being an LDTC is almost like a grandparent, because they are able

to be with the student, but then give them back (Ingenito, 2020). Though all three roles are

different, they all do case manage students and evaluate them to come to a consensus for

their IEP’s.
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This educator went from being in the corporate world, to the classroom, to the Child Study

Team (out of the classroom). What did you hear from her that would make you consider

doing the same? What did you hear from her that would not cause you to consider such a

transition?

Personally, I had other interests for jobs, but none were ever in the corporate world, most

were artistic things I could do on my own or as a side job in addition to a teaching job.

Hearing from her about her working in the corporate world and then getting into teaching is

not necessarily something I can relate to since I have always wanted to be a teacher. From

her history and background of how she got into her place within the child study team, it was

really interesting; since she first started out substituting younger grades, then from that

experience wanting to substitute older grades, she found the special education classes more

suited for her. From then on, she became a special education teacher, got her credentials and

then became a LDTC. From her experience, something that makes me not want to consider

making that transition from working the corporate world, is the unknown of it; from

Jeanine’s experience, the company she was working for moved, therefore she had to find

another job or place to work. By hearing this I was turned off from the idea of the corporate

world because it solely depends on the stance of the company and is hard to be

individualized.

This educator shared some negative implications that are resulting from the COVID

pandemic's impact on her school and district.  Think about them and reflect on them.
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Jeanine shared many aspects that the pandemic has brought up for her field, but one that

stuck out the most to me was that the main portion of her job, observing, meeting and testing

students, is much impacted. As mentioned before, Jeanine and the child study team as a

whole rely heavily on seeing students and their social interactions. Obviously being in virtual

school, and limited numbers of students in the school, there is not much social interactions to

observe. For example, Jeanine says the best thing is to “observe students in the cafeteria”

(11:34, Ingenito, 2020). This is the environment where students would normally be faced

with the most social interactions, and with going virtual there is no way to observe students

in a cafeteria if there are no school lunches. In addition, if students are in the school, they

have to wear masks, so it is more difficult to test them and see how they are speaking, or

even seeing their assessments from 6ft away (Ingenito, 2020). When Jeanine spoke about this

aspect of COVID in her school, it makes me feel like these students they are observing aren’t

getting the usual attention or accurate help they need; though I know teachers are doing

everything they can do to make it work like it used to in the past, I think these changes and

new rules really create a barrier to obtaining the correct and efficient information needed to

make these students education and personal lives still feel “normal”.

Was there anything in this video that was concerning to you?  Was there something that you

would be worried about when you become a practicing educator? Explain why or why not?

To me there wasn’t anything about this video that was too concerning. For me, I am

looking to go into special education, so seeing how fulfilled Jeanine was talking about her

job really assured me that I am on the right path. The only thing that does give me some
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worry is the idea of doing this all virtually. As mentioned above going virtual or restricted in

person in any role in the special education department can be hard and pose many challenges.

I think you have to have a lot of patience to be an educator in general, but even more so if

there was to be another switch for teaching virtually. Though nothing was specifically

addressed that was a concern for me as a future educator, this video did allow me to feel

confident that I am interested in the right group of students for me and my personality.
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References

Ingenito, J. (2020, October 15). The Child Study Team's Role during the COVID

Era [Video]. Interview by K. Suk. Canvas.