Top Tips for Jumpstarting the New School Year

Abstract

CEC offered its first-ever New Special Educator Jumpstart Program in August, created for first-year through third-year teachers. It sold out almost immediately.

Several renowned subject matter experts delivered dynamic online workshops featuring current information and strategies to meet challenges faced most by new special educators – including new issues likely to surface in a post-COVID classroom. Attendees also participated in virtual mentoring sessions with the presenters throughout the 5-week program.

Here are some of the tips they offered:

Co-Teaching: Collaboration and Teamwork with Colleagues

(Led by Marilyn Friend, Ph.D.)

Reflect on your knowledge and skills as a special educator so you can confidently articulate them to others, thus clarifying responsibilities you can and should assume versus those you should not.

Be a lifelong student of effective communication, observing professional who seem to have extraordinary skills and applying those skills to your interactions.

Practice the skill of listening, including becoming comfortable with communication pauses that often result in additional information being shared.

Explicitly negotiate co-teaching roles, responsibilities, and practices to ensure parity between professionals in the classroom and the effective delivery of specially designed instruction (SDI).

Preparing to Support Students in a Post-COVID Learning Environment

(Led by Danielle Kovach, Ed.D.)

Start school with your “PPE”:

Plan: Take a walk (virtually or physically) around your room. Do your materials and resources fit within your school’s new guidelines?

Prepare: Get your students ready for a new and different school year! Send videos or photos of you and your classroom before the first day.

Educate: Do what you do best! By staying positive, you set the tone for new procedures and guidelines.

Do what you do best! By staying positive, you set the tone for new procedures and guidelines.””

Building Strong Family Partnerships

(Led by Clara Hauth, Ph.D., and Catherine Creighton Thompson, Ph.D.)

Understanding Your Families: Create and share a pre-instruction survey and know who your “go to” faculty are in the schools to include translators, parent liaisons, counselors, social workers etc.

Communication & Collaboration: Schedule a pre-instruction meeting to introduce yourself, establish expectations, and share relevant information to create strong partnerships with all of your families.

Learning Support: Work together with paraprofessionals to create opportunities to support parent engagement with lessons for all learners.

Consistent Communication “Touch Points”: Establish frequent opportunities to check in and individualize supports, communicate IEP information, and provide student progress.

Compliance in Context of COVID: What Special Educators Need to Know

(Led by David Bateman, Ph.D., and Andy Markelz, Ph.D.)

Special education has and will continue to be driven by statutory, regulatory, and case law.

COVID-19 has not changed statutory or case law.

Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) has most recently been defined as “reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances” (Endrew F. Supreme Court Decision, 2017).

Follow federal and your state’s regulatory guidance. Subscribe to a mailing list for regular updates.

Review caseload Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and update accommodations as needed.

Compensatory education is different from compensatory services.

Plan for disruptions in your school’s response plans. What can this mean for IEP implementation? Consider inequities in a family’s ability to adapt and access services (e.g., lack of internet/devices).

A student’s IEP is a legal contract, therefore, conduct all aspects in “good-faith efforts.”