Literally the day after we got back from our Northwestern road trip, where we visited friends and family, I was placed at a school site in East Palo Alto or Ravenswood City School District. Oh, and in this school district we are not Special Education Teachers, but Teachers of Integrated Services. Their entire school district has all their students with IEP's (Individualized Education Plans) placed in general education classrooms. So most of their teachers, who would be Special Education teachers are Resource Specialist in a big way. I like to call myself an Inclusion Specialist. All these fancy long names still haven't solved the chaos that is Ravenswood and its Special education department. But, literally, the only way is up and I know my hard work and perseverance will make a difference.
At times I feel completely paralyzed in the paperwork and ritualized process that is supposed to be helping our students with special needs. What I call the "real" part of the job, or actually teaching them, planning out what they need according to their IEP's, is basically put on the back burner. We are scrambling to catch up with "past due's," pending IEP's and angry parents.
What I would love is someone to deal with the paper trail, basically a secretary, so I can really start implementing the crap out of all those IEP's. I have about 18 students and each one has a different IEP. Each one needs something different and we have been in school 4 weeks and I still don't feel like I'm where I need to be.
The cool part of my job is the school I am a part of and that I get to work with Kindergartners to 6th graders. And my supervisor is a ball-buster, so I'm hoping we can clean things up, so everything runs well year after year.
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