Reflection For the assignment, I interviewed Mr. David Sable. Mr. Sable is the Executive Director of Student Services for Radford City School. Mr. Sable oversees Special Education programs, 504 programs, food services programs, homelessness, and he is the division testing coordinator. My leadership journey began after I attended an initial special education eligibility meeting in 2011. Before the eligibility meeting, I never even thought about educational leadership. I envisioned myself as always being a teacher, and nothing more. My decision to attend this particular eligibility meeting was the best professional decision I have ever made. This eligibility meeting was the first time I witnessed Exemplary Leadership. Mr. Sable conducted …show more content…
Sable and I have a great working relationship, and he was eager to assist me with this assignment. Our interview was informal and conversational. The first question I asked Mr. Sable was what were some of the greatest challenges he encounters while providing services for students with disabilities. Mr. Sable said that the greatest challenge is ensuring that students with disabilities are provided with equal access to public education. He stated, “It is difficult to provide this when there are low expectations of SWD, and they are categorically defined as not being able to benefit from a program.This low expectation often becomes the barrier to access. There is often a belief that SWD often is the barrier to having successful classrooms and hence access to all aspects is limited.” I asked Mr. Sable what “scares” him the most about special education and he provided me with two answers. 1. That students with disabilities do not have access to all aspects of public education and 2. When budget cuts occur, everyone wants to take the monies from special education services …show more content…
Sable has been a special education director since 1985. I know that special education has dramatically changed over the years. I wanted his professional opinion about inclusion in special education. I asked Mr. Sable, what challenges do students with disabilities encounter in inclusive classroom settings? Mr. Sable shared that students with disabilities encounter a variety of problems in the inclusive classrooms. He stated, “Some do not have the basic academic skills to be successful and need remediation in the basic academic skills in a small setting with modified instructional strategies.” Mr. Sable believes that decisions should be made upon the individual's needs and not a predetermined system of belief that one delivery method fits all. Mr. Sable stated that “The primary problem with inclusion is that we resort to an unintentional system similar to tracking. SWD are often in the regular classroom but not in the honors classes, and they often do not aspire or are expected to work towards an Advanced diploma.They do not have access to all the opportunities all children have because of low expectations. Systems often have this false sense of “we put them in with the regular kids” justification, but when you look at the majority of the classes they are in the other students are usually the ones that make up the gap groups that exist. As we all know, the achievement gap between the gap group students and non-gap group students still exist after NCLB. If inclusion can
Ms. Hall has had many years of public education experience and higher education training in which to hone her leadership style and framework. She started her career as a teacher in the Kirkwood School District. She then served as an assistant elementary principal at both Ritenour and Pattonville School Districts before being selected to serve as the assistant superintendent of the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District in 2008. Throughout her career she continued to pursue her education as a means o...
Leadership & Direction. (1997, May 11). Retrieved April 6, 2011, from Big Dog & Little Dog's
What do we do with children with disabilities in the public school? Do we include them in the general education class with the “regular” learning population or do we separate them to learn in a special environment more suited to their needs? The problem is many people have argued what is most effective, full inclusion where students with all ranges of disabilities are included in regular education classes for the entire day, or partial inclusion where children spend part of their day in a regular education setting and the rest of the day in a special education or resource class for the opportunity to work in a smaller group setting on specific needs. The need for care for children with identified disabilities both physical and learning continues to grow and the controversy continues.
The education system is arguably the most beneficial system in the world; however, it also contains many controversial practices. Proper funding, discrimination, and curriculum are just some of the problems in today’s education system. Everyone has a different opinion about what is best for our children and it is impossible to please everyone. As long as the educational system is in tact, then there will be confusion and debate within the system and its’ administrators. The only thing that can be done is attempting to make it so that everyone will benefit equally, but this is much more difficult than one would assume. I will focus on the aspect of discrimination on minorities within special education and more specifically the following questions: Does the special education system discriminate against minorities? If so, how? What can be done, if anything, to correct or improve this system?
One obstacle that I believe many special needs students and families will face is understanding and dealing with the disability itself. Speaking from experience, this process can take time to understand and accept. This is where a special education teacher plays a significant role, assisting the student and family with information and support for understanding the student’s disability, facilitating education programs, and most importantly hope and progress for a bright future. Another obstacles that students with disabilities may face, is social interaction and acceptance. It is vital that all special education teachers and programs, try to incorporate strong social connections with their regular education peers and other community members and
To inspire and influence others, a leader must possess many skills and abilities. As motivational speaker Peter Northouse, states, “a leader should be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant” (Northouse, 2013) Moving an entire group of individuals toward a singular goal is a considerable undertaking. Without effective communication skills and a clear vision of what needs to be accomplished, one will feel like they are trying to herd cats rather than leading.
The main obstacle faced by students with disabilities in the attempt to achieve educational equality is the continuing debate over the In...
Inclusion of all students in classrooms has been an ongoing issue for the past twenty-five years (Noll, 2013). The controversy is should special education students be placed in an inclusion setting or should they be placed in a special education classroom? If the answer is yes to all special education students being placed in inclusion, then how should the inclusion model look? Every students is to receive a free an appropriate education. According to the Individual Education Act (IDEA), all students should be placed in the Least Restrictive Learning Environment (Noll, 2013).
The idea of inclusion within a classroom tends to breed controversy from many people. Currently there is no clear consensus on a definition of inclusion (Heward, 2006). There are many different views on how students with disabilities should be handled. Those views ranged from students being fully included, partially included, or not included at all in mainstream schooling. Different descriptions of inclusion tend to reflect the person's own opinions towards it. People who feel students should not be included in the classroom focus on the negative characteristics of inclusion, such as the challenges of developing plans for students as well as the hard work it requires to incorporate those plans. However, studies show that full inclusion has many benefits to the students, for both students with disabilities as well as students without them. Inclusion has shown to improve the student's social skills, encourage communication, inspire laws and regulations, and improve the overall schooling experience (Gargiulo, 2012). Although it will take longer then some would like or have the patience for, full inclusion can be done in the classroom, with its benefits outweighing the hard work that it requires.
Inclusion in classrooms is defined as combining students with disabilities and students without disabilities together in an educational environment. It provides all students with a better sense of belonging. They will enable friendships and evolve feelings of being a member of a diverse community (Bronson, 1999). Inclusion benefits students without disabilities by developing a sense of helping others and respecting other diverse people. By this, the students will build up an appreciation that everyone has unique yet wonderful abilities and personalities (Bronson, 1999). This will enhance their communication skills later in life. Inclusive classrooms provide students with disabilities a better education on the same level as their peers. Since all students would be in the same educational environment, they would follow the same curriculum and not separate ones based on their disability. The main element to a successful inclusive classroom, is the teachers effort to plan the curriculum to fit all students needs. Teachers must make sure that they are making the material challenging enough for students without special needs and understandable to students with special needs. Inclusive classrooms are beneficial to students with and without special needs.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2012). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary
Exceptional, in this case, means not ordinary or average in the world of education, which includes two distinct and rather opposite groups of students: those who are significantly above average and those who are much below average. In the case of both of these groups, in order to give them their best chance at a quality and truly engaging education, students can be separated from the average student population. Exceptionally excellent students will typically get placed into accelerated, honors, or Advanced Placement classes where they will learn more intricate material at a quicker pace, while significantly below average students are typically sent to a resource room or assigned to spend the entirety of their day in a special education classroom where they will take part in smaller group or individual lessons with specially trained teachers determined to give them their absolute best chance at success, despite any setbacks they might face as a result of their disability. This model works well to assure that children are placed in classes that they can keep up with but also find appropriately engaging, however, in order to avoid the inevitable and socially-damning feeling of inadequacy that can naturally come with exclusivity, many schools implement the increasingly-supported education model of inclusion, or an approach to special education that wholly rejects the idea of placing students with special needs in separate classrooms or schools and, instead, favors integrating them with the rest of their peers in the hope that doing so will improve the quality and end result of their education and socialization. In this research paper, I will analyze the successes and failures of inclusion in terms of students who are disabled and, consequently, use that learned information to creatively
Inclusion has become increasingly important in education in recent years, with the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act being passed in 2004 to ensure equality in our system. In summary, inclusion is the idea of there being no child...
The inclusion of students with disabilities into normal classes leads to greater success. However, arguments are that teachers tend to spend more time with the special students hoping that the able children will work on their own. The introduction of inclusive education makes the disabled students see themselves as equal with the others in class because they compete together and share classes.
To begin with, full inclusion in the education system for people with disabilities should be the first of many steps that are needed to correct the social injustices that people with disabilities currently face. Students with disabilities are far too frequently isolated and separated in the education system (Johnson). They are often provided a diluted, inferior education and denied meaningful opportunities to learn. There are many education rights for children with disabilities to p...