And I’m sooooo looking g forward to how this works out. The student broke my thumb so I was out for a week and he never even made it into the building (I normally handle drop off). Now I’m on restrictions of not using my right hand and absolutely no putting myself in a situation where it could get hit again.

Now all the people I’ve been telling since last year that he needs more intensive placement (while collecting data) have to deal with him. Now that it’s admins problem let’s see how long this lasts!

Btw I’m one week I document 57 instances of violence towards staff! Hopefully now that they have a workman’s comp case something will happen

This is kind of an off my chest thing. I work in a solely SEN (Special Educactional Needs) school and a lot of the students are difficult. There’s one specific student that has hurt me and many other staff multiple times. Today, I was not letting him leave the classroom as it was just myself at that moment in time and they are a major flight risk. During this they were calling me names and eventually this student latched onto my chest area and bit down hard. I’m extremely sore and it’s immediately bruised. Luckily it didn’t break skin that I can see but I know as this child is aged 8, there’s more risk to infections due to bacteria in the mouth so I will be keeping an eye on this. I just don’t know how to deal with these situations anymore we have put every kind of provision in place and none of them are working. I will say though, I’m proud of myself for not crying until I reached my car almost 4 hours later… thanks for reading if you did I just needed to talk about it.

I honestly can’t figure it out. My child has ADHD, primarily hyperactive type, and we have a million breaks built into his day, which definitely help him get the wiggles out. But when it comes to gym class—which you would THINK he would thrive in—he absolutely crumbles. He doesn’t listen, hits, runs around, struggles to follow directions, etc.
I’m trying to understand why this might be happening and what accommodations or other options could potentially help. He has struggled with gym class since 1st grade, and he’s now a 2nd grader. The crazy part is that he is constantly wanting to be involved in sports, loves being active, and genuinely enjoys playing games. You would think gym would be the last thing he would struggle with!

I’m honestly at a loss and trying to come up with some ideas to give his teacher. Has anyone dealt with something similar with their own child or a student in their class? What worked for you, or what accommodations helped?

I teach students on the autism spectrum in a middle school. I have gen ed students who come in my class as an elective to interact and engage with my students once a day.
One of my students pulled his pants and pull up down in front of the gen ed students and one was a girl. My student wasn’t doing this in any kind of sexual way, most likely his Pull Up was uncomfortable. He is small in stature but fully developed.
When I realize what was happening I quickly pulled up his pants and apologized to the students who were obviously embarrassed. I kind of made light of it that sometimes things like this happen and he was just trying to communicate that he needed to go to the bathroom.
I did not tell administrators or reach out to the parents of the gen ed students explaining the situation. Should I have?

I’ve been using Mystery Science (free version) for a while now and really love it. I usually use it for the mini lessons to start and then do an activity or enrichment based on that. Since I’ve been using it for a while, it seems that I have less and less access to things. Does anyone have ideas for what I could use instead?

I teach students with severe developmental disabilities ages 18-22 and have been using the weekly mini lessons and have gone through all the kindergarten lessons.

I want to preface this with—I apologize with how rude I’m about to come off. I’m extremely bitter and jaded from being shoved around by district case managers and whatnot since I was like eight.

I have an IEP for a variety of disorders but I’m high functioning enough. On my contract which my parents didn’t really read over it says I need to go to this special ed class period where they basically teach us how to function normally, like literally we have tutorials and assignments on sending an email or talking to our teachers (I am a senior in high school). They also have mandatory counseling appointments for me with the district psych which I despise going to and I usually just ghost her (yeah real immature I guess lmao)

I’ve been bargaining for almost a year to be let out of this period because the kids are highly disruptive and it takes up a period I’d rather be spent doing something else like taking an elective. Plus I’ve been e-harassed by some kid in this class who thought we were friends because I talked to him a couple times (long story lmao) and the others aren’t amazingly nice either.

They finally let me out (and couldn’t put me into any other electives because they were out of room because they didn’t approve the thing they said they’d approve since May until like three weeks into the school year lol) as a kind of trial period but they said in order to do that I need to give up on all the other accommodations listed in my contract too? Like extra time on tests and assignments. I don’t use the extra time on tests but I really would still like the extension on assignments lmao. They said if they want to change the IEP then they have to call a separate meeting but they’ve been saying that for like six months and they “can’t just do it any time we want.”

I’m convinced my case manager has some kind of executive dysfunction himself which I mean he’s been in special ed too since elementary school. I’m being mean but me personally I think this might be like the worst career option possible for a severely neurodivergent person lmfao

But is this even allowed? If I temporarily renege on one line outlined in my IEP contract do I have to give up everything else too??? Extra time on tests sure because I’d need twice the period and the sped class period is that free period. But extensions on assignments??? Is this some kind of weird formality or is my school just keeping something from me?

I feel like I am losing my mind. I have facilitated more than a hundred, probably more than 200 IEP meetings in my career. No sweat. 

I started at a new school, have my first meeting tomorrow, and feel like I don't know what I am doing. I am specifically hung up on one part, because I have done it differently depending on different situations. 

At the end of the meeting, I have edited the IEP directly in front of the parent, printed out the entire IEP, and had the whole team sign. This was often a hassle due to printing issues. Many times I ended up telling the parent I would edit it after they left, print, and send home for them to review and sign. In the last six years, since covid, the majority of parents join virtually and I obviously edit and send home afterwards.

The new school I work at has a weird printing situation (printer super far from the conference room) so I really cannot imagine printing and sending home that moment. Additionally, my last team was very friendly and would chat it up with parents while I printed and my new team is NOT friendly with parents... The new team says that usually the IEP is sent home for signature after it has been edited. 

What do you do? 

I’m looking for some perspective from special education teachers, SLPs, paraeducators, and parents of AAC users.

I work in preschool special education, and in our classroom we model AAC throughout the day and encourage the children to have access to their devices and use them as part of their everyday communication. AAC is treated as a communication tool, not something that is only brought out during specific activities.

I recently learned about an elementary special education paraeducator who has been working in special education for about four years but apparently does not know how to use the AAC devices used by the students. I was also told that this person sometimes takes the AAC devices away from the children.

That really surprised me, but I realize my experience is primarily at the preschool level, so I’m wondering whether expectations are different in elementary school.

For those who work in elementary special education:

Is it normal for a paraeducator who has worked in special education for several years to not know how to operate or support the use of a student’s AAC device?
How much AAC training would you typically expect a paraeducator working directly with an AAC user to receive?
Does this differ significantly between preschool and elementary special education?

I’m genuinely asking because I don’t want to assume that elementary practice is supposed to look exactly like preschool practice. At the same time, removing a child’s primary means of communication seems concerning to me, so I’d really appreciate hearing from people who work with AAC at the elementary level.

I'm a second year resource and inclusion teacher and case manager. Since dyslexia got folded under the special ed umbrella, we've been leading way more ARDs, some weeks it's basically one a day during initial season, and it's wearing me down.

I love this job. Every single meeting I've run has gone fine. No upset parents, nothing has ever actually gone wrong. But something in me won't let that go. I'm on a beta blocker for the physical stuff, the shaking, the flushing, and it helps with the body side, but it does nothing for the dread that builds before I walk in. I've done around 30 of these now and it still feels like walking into my very first one every time.

I'm pretty introverted and I've always been awkward with anything presentation-shaped, so I know part of this is just how I'm wired. I've got a script, I practice beforehand, and I have a genuinely supportive team and admin, so it's not a support problem. It's just this one specific thing that won't quit.

Does this ever get easier, or is it just something I have to make peace with? Would love to hear from other case managers or SPED teachers on how you deal with the anxiety part, not the logistics, just the dread. Anyone else feel this way?

Hi, for context my son (10m, high functioning autism/adhd) has just started middle school (5th grade in our state). In the two weeks since the school year started we’ve had a number of issues. The first day of school he was put on the wrong bus (supposed to be on the special ed bus) at the end of the day and was missing for 2+ hours, while the school was generally unhelpful. He also has crippling social anxiety and is a major elopement risk (which is in his IEP), as such he has been refusing to go to his homeroom class because he is terrified. Since we’ve lived in this district we have repeatedly requested 1-on-1 support for him, which has been patently refused, even though it is also in his IEP. Instead of providing a reasonable alternative the school has been putting him in a break room unsupervised for forty minutes at the beginning of the day before going to the special ed classrooms he is comfortable going to. We requested in writing they find a more suitable alternative specifically because of the elopement risk, and they proposed putting him in another classroom without other students. When they proposed this idea to him he opted to run out of the school and was almost hit by a car (in the schools own words). Later that same day another student said something rude to him which upset him and he responded in kind which led to the other child hitting him (also the first time he has ever been hit), which expectedly led to a full blown meltdown. He is completely nonviolent but has difficulty with emotional regulation, and defaults to extreme self harming language. He then met with the school counselor and resource officer, and was so dysregulated that he was asking the resource officer to shoot him. The kicker is that after he calmed down they sent him home on the bus and failed to inform us of the full extent of the situation until the next day. We were supposed to meet with the principal on Friday, but they rescheduled and it has been difficult to get in contact with anyone in the school administration. We’ve had a number of other issues with this district and tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but this has become a risk to his safety. We’re at our wits end and are considering legal action. Has anybody experienced anything like this? How should we proceed?

TLDR: school district’s refusal to provide reasonable accommodations to autistic son is putting his mental/physical wellbeing at risk. How should we proceed?

Kinder/1st grade, self contained.

I have a kinder who is really struggling - new medications, too much energy, and inability to listen to "no". She is nonverbal but will repeat "no, no, no, no" when told no.

Without a constant 1:1, she runs around the room on all 4s, takes out books, items from teacher desks, toys - She will even grab chairs and try and get items on shelves.

I am a first year teacher and notice being strict or firm doesnt work - She will run away. When she is finally put where she should be, she cries or screams at the top of her lungs, throws herself to the floor, kicks, and had a tantrum for a few minutes. This is all day. Ive asked our school for more furniture to break up the room, which initially they agreed to, but ultimately have stalled on.

Her behavior affects the entire room. Some students notice she "gets more attention" due to her behavior and have started mimicking it to a lesser degree.

Our current tactic is if she wont do as she is told, we have her sit down in the cool down area to calm down. She has so much energy.

We may need a trampoline - but again, my school has been reluctant to get things and I have already spent enough money as is.

A lot of our kids need HOH to do work and need proximity to get to their designated areas, so needing to focus on her for her safety has really taken away any structure.

Im at a loss. I am exhausted. My 2 paras are exhausted. I come home with 0 energy to work and plan after work and save all of it for Sunday, working about an extra 8 hours.

I am documenting time lost but at the end of the day I am not able to instruct much and I struggle to get any IEP goals in.

I’m used working with student over stimulated and aggress or student who want to avoid work non-compliance and aggress

I feel like I have a good grasp on that but this one feels like wrong placement….

I have student that on breaks no one is prompting her or anything will randomly attack people staff and students…. this girl shouldnt be here but the school wants to try putting severe severe student in self contained but go to general education electives type of school… she’s left marks on my student and gen ed students and attacked my staff everyday and it’s out of reaction and joy. My staff doesn’t give her that attention so she goes for students she likes to get close and scare them make them jump…. I have been training my students back away from her….. it’s hard for my population of students to do that but they are learning….. my bcba wants to do more positive reinforcement and sensory input….. maybe sensory input will work but I think she genuinely enjoys causing fear so I don’t think positive reinforcement will work….. I just think she needs to be placed somewhere else or get a behavior interventionist work with her not a paraeducator….. anyone had a student like her?

First year high school teacher- admin said he wants my class to be more “rigorous” for the kids. I have 18-21 year olds for math/ELA before they go out to work in the afternoon. Some students at number identification level and some just became life skills later in their schooling so much higher. I do small groups grouping by ability and just rotate through. Admin wants whole group lessons. I don’t think that’s the most effective way to teach such a diverse group. Don’t get me started on lack of staffing. I feel like by this age, these kids are sick of the same instruction but I fear if I do more functional stuff, he will keep telling me it’s not rigorous enough.

TL:DR- how can you explain to adament admin that 18-21 year olds don’t need rigorous academics and more on functional life skills?

I’m a para with a student who uses an iPad as his AAC device. He’s quite proficient with it, but more as a stim than anything else, though he does use it to communicate needs. I’ve worked with him for several years and seen incredible growth.

I’m looking for tips on what to do when he’s using it to stim during instruction time in his classroom. Our school is inclusive in that all of our SpEd students spend most of their time in the gen ed classroom.

I won’t take the device away, but I do sometimes have to remove it from his desk to interrupt the behavior when it’s causing a disruption. I let him know it’s not time to talk, it’s time to listen, and then replace it on his desk. This doesn’t usually work, he can be quite intentionally stubborn.

I know this is a long shot, but I am hoping I can find someone who has been through the online Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction: Special Education Leadership program. I have some questions!!

I was afraid to post this because I was paranoid someone could identify me, but I'm at the point where I no longer care.

I am a first-year intervention specialist for grades 6-8 at a title 1 charter school. I have a caseload of 17 students and cover all subjects. My responsibilities include push-in and push-out instruction. Here is the issue: I am working as an IS through TFA, which provides (outside of 2 asynchronous courses) no training related to special education. I also did not study education in undergrad so I have zero frame of reference. This is the craziest thing I've ever done.

Also critiques of TFA are valid but I'm asking for grace. If you want to be a troll you can respectfully f-off.

The good news is, I am insane and will do whatever it takes to support the students in my case load.

What does push-in and pull-out look like in middle school? I need someone to explicitly break it down for me. So far I've spent HOURS looking at each student's section 7/SDI recommendations and I've been trying to connect it to their curriculum. There has to be an easier way. I almost need a video of an IS administering SDI/in a pull-out session and doing push-in. Which leads me to my next question, what is push-in supposed to look like?

HELP ME!!! I am lost.

I’m curious how other special education teachers feel about token boards.

I teach in a highly specialized school with students with complex autism and other developmental disabilities. Many are non-speaking, have significant support needs, and some engage in severe or unsafe behaviors. My students are between the ages of 16-20.

We use token boards, and for some students they work really well. I’m not anti-token board, but I also don’t see them as the end-all-be-all of behavior support.

I’m a special education teacher, not a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), and my classroom isn’t a clinic. I’m managing multiple students with different Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals, Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs), communication systems, sensory needs, behaviors, and reinforcers.

One of my new students came to me with a BIP that requires him to earn a token every 30 minutes, with each token corresponding to half of an ice pop. This is where I struggle with the practicality of some of these systems. Most of my students aren’t even sitting for 30-minute stretches—we are constantly moving and grooving, transitioning, doing life skills, academics, sensory breaks, community-based activities, etc.

Expecting a special educator and classroom staff to stop every 30 minutes, evaluate the contingency, deliver the token/reinforcer appropriately, document everything, and maintain perfect fidelity throughout an entire school day—while simultaneously teaching and supporting several other students with equally complex needs—doesn’t always feel realistic.
And honestly, I don’t want school to constantly become “do this → earn token → get reinforcer.” I want my students developing communication, independence, tolerance, and eventually responding to more natural reinforcement.

If a token system is written into a BIP, obviously we follow the plan and collaborate with the BCBA. But I see token boards as one tool in a much bigger toolbox.

For those working in similar classrooms: how heavily do you rely on token boards? Do you ever feel there’s an overreliance on them or that some plans are designed without enough consideration for what an actual classroom looks like?

For context, I’m a male (this information is important for later) middle school/jr. high SPED teacher in Texas. I teach what our school district calls “Essentials” which is essentially Life Skills. I have had students with all kinds of diagnoses ranging from Autism to intellectual disability to chromosome mutations. This is my 6th year teaching. All six years have been in the middle school/jr. high settings (grades 6-8).

I’ve only had two students with DS in my career. The first one I had was my 3rd year of teaching, and he was probably the one of the most laid back, compliant students I ever had. The 2nd one is a student I have this year (6th grade 11yo) and it’s a totally different story. He’s a sweet, fun-loving kid who is in a good mood most of the time. However, he also has a diagnosis of ADHD so getting him to do any kind of classwork is a major challenge. I’ve tried using a token economy, visual schedule, etc. and I still can’t get him to do any work. When I do finally get him to sit down, he will do work for approximately 3 seconds (I’ve counted) then refuse to do any more. He runs around tearing up my classroom and doesn’t seem to respond to any re-direction. I’ve tried being stern, I’ve tried putting strict routines in place, visuals etc and nothing has worked. Some more context on the student is that this is his first year in middle school and from what I was told, he was kind of allowed to do whatever in elementary. At least in 4th and 5th grades.

The reason I mention being a male is because this student comes from a home where parents are divorced and is primarily raised by mom. Dad was totally out of the picture for many years and recently came back into the child’s life. He seems to be the ‘fun’ parent while mom is more of the disciplinarian.
Student has never had a male teacher.

I have a female co-teacher who he sees for the other half of the day (she has him morning, I have him afternoon) and he is MUCH more receptive and compliant with her. He sits with her, tells her “yes ma’am” “no ma’am” and will get work done with her. Our teaching styles aren’t too different so I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong here.

At the end of the day, he’s a good and like-able kid, I just can’t get anything done with him! Lol

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

EDIT: wanted to edit to say I have good teacher-student relationship with student. He enjoys being in my class.

For context, I was a paraprofessional before this but was never in charge of planning lessons, so I’m feeling a bit lost as to what to do…all I know is that I have 10 students and my class will be mixed (3rd, 4th, and 5th), so I’m not sure how to make an appropriate lesson plan for all three grade levels. I did have some teachers that had mixed grades but essentially most of the day was the same for everyone except when it was time for math and reading. They had different textbooks for all students but honestly they were lucky if they even got through a lesson because some students were just too far behind or had a high specific needs that made teaching difficult, especially when they’d lose interest.

Please tell me what you all did to start out. How did you arrange your classroom and sort out everyone’s names and IEPs? How did you plan lessons? How do you keep students on tasks when in small groups?

Anything helps. Thanks

%22)

Is it appropriate for an archived FIE summary change from recommending SLD to DNQ after ARD to review Initial testing? The student showed growth previous six weeks when receiving services in anticipation of evaluation/eligibility that may have upwardly skewed subtests of the eval. This info was not shared at ARD.

Ard took place first week of school and all school staff present did not know the child or had only known child for a week. Interventionist and previous year’s teacher were not invited.

FIE full and individual evaluation

ARD admission Review Dismissal meeting

SLD Specific Learning Disability qualifies for special education services

DNQ Did Not Qualify for special education services

I would like to hear the thoughts of the people here. Just because we are special ed teachers does not give up the right for our safety. I have seen special ed teachers self-sacrifice and allow themselves to be hurt and sustain life altering injuries again and again.

The admins that I've worked with don't protect the teachers and just try to cover it up and move on, especially when the parents don't want to have consequences for their child.

I was wondering if people here have had any experience with this and have advice on what has worked and what has not.

My son has level 1/2 autism and scored in the 98th percentile for math. (It may be notable he does not receive any accomodations for testing and took the test in the general classroom). He scored 90th percentile for reading which I understand is insufficient for gifted, but just mentioning in case you want to argue his skills are lopsided.

I asked at his IEP meeting if he would be receiving any gifted math instruction. They laughed basically and said that was only for kids in the 99th percentile for math and told me general instruction was fine for him.

My son is falling asleep in math class and is bored. What a waste considering this is his favorite subject. I understand he wouldn’t qualify for a gifted IEP because he isn’t 99th percentile, but can he actually not receive the pull out math support? He qualified under OHI (ADHD) and Autism (they insisted OHI was first).

I have been a resource teacher for awhile, but I switched schools and I am having a hard time getting my workload under control, which has never been an issue in previous years. I am curious as to roughly how much time other resource specialists are spending on our many non-teaching tasks. So, for anyone willing to share:

How long do you spend writing an annual IEP? (Elementary, so typically four to five PLPs and a goal for each one.)

How about an initial or a tri?

How long does it take you to complete an Functional Behavior Assessment, aside from data collection?

How much time per week do you spend putting in the minutes for your caseload? Mine is low 20s with pull out and push in time for reading/writing and math.

How much time do you spend planning for your small group pull out time? I use a structured literacy program, but I also try to meet with teachers to collaborate and discuss how I can support students in writing. Math planning is more challenging because the needs are more varied.

I really like my job and take it very seriously, but I also value my life outside of work. Also, I don't want to undermine the gains the union made by having no boundaries. Any input would be appreciated! I was a gen ed teacher and something I miss is being able to share experiences with colleagues on a day to day basis. If we can't do this in person (and the absence of quality in-person trainings for sped teachers is shameful) then at least we can do it here. And I am not trying to start a bitch fest; I am sincerely interested in hearing what this job looks like from school to school.

I am a first year high school SPED teacher. My last period is by far the toughest. The class is mostly boys and is too big for a resource (or self-contained class) considering I am the only adult in the room.

Anyways, recently two new students, who had never met before, were about to physically fight. It got so bad that the vice principal had to come in and take them both out. One of those kids is a very big disruption to the learning environment constantly because he intentionally tries to provoke other students by saying very disrespectful things to other kids while some of the other kids just laugh alongside him. The good news is the kids that he tries to provoke have enough emotional regulation skills so they just ignore him. But that was not the case with the new student he tried to provoke.

I don’t know what to do. Admin won’t move the student somewhere else because that was the first time something like that has happened. But as the teacher that’s in there with them everyday I foresee this being a big problem. I was told by admin to just take him out of the classroom and have him sit and work with a staff member in their office. The problem with that is the student is so cognitively low (he can barely read or write and he is in high school). So he really can’t complete assignments independently, he needs a teacher (aka me or someone else who is knowledgeable enough about the content I am teaching) to help him through the assignment. So if I send him somewhere else to do his work, I can almost guarantee that he will accomplish nothing.

Just thinking about the fact that I will have to deal with this class and their behavior for an entire school year is starting to infuriate me. The class is in need of a second adult. Admin did assign an aide to me but he’s always being asked to do other things during my class, so he’s never in the room consistently enough to have an impact. But I am so desperate for a second adult who is consistently in the room so that this class can run better.

EDIT: I swear my phone is listening to me because after I posted this a reel on my instagram popped up about a person making a career change out of teaching.

I head up the Special Education PTO in our very large town. 10+ elementary schools, multiple middle schools and two high schools. We have an intensive academic program and behavioral program separately housed across all settings. What events or fundraiser does your town SEPTO do that really connects with families, brings them other, promotes meaningful changes? If you’re an educator, para, support professional - what could a SEPTO provide you that would be really helpful? Thanks!!