The School Consultation Committee: An Approach to Implementing a Teacher Consultation Model

Abstract

Approaches to providing consultation through “experts” external to the school building, or through assigning consultation activities to special education with full-time direct teaching duties, are fraught with problems. An alternative approach is to establish a School Consultation Committee, composed of skilled regular and special education teachers, the building principal, and ancillary personnel. An outside consultant trains the committee to screen referrals, pinpoint and assess discrepancies between teacher expectations and child performance as well as to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate intervention plans. Preliminary results indicate that the School Consultation Committee is an effective approach for supporting behaviorally disordered pupils in the educational mainstream.

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