Diversity in every class calls for all teachers to master wider range of skills

Imagine leading a class of 24 second-graders, with all those different personalities, learning styles, language skills, math aptitude and reading levels. Imagine one child just can’t keep up.

His case is discussed by a school team devoted to difficult cases. They decide he needs testing by a specialist. The test shows he qualifies for special education. At a meeting to create an individual education plan, or IEP, the educators advise taking the child out of the regular class – too frustrating – to join one moving at his pace, probably at another school.

If the parents opt to visit the class first, they will likely see much less chatter and fewer spontaneous answers than in regular classes. Outbursts or incidents are met with trained responses from teachers and aides, usually silence from other students.

Such classes typically include two or three grade levels and a range of learning levels and social skills. The teacher has training in working with disabilities, either holding a special credential or in the process of getting one, often in lieu of a general education teaching credential.

Now, imagine the parents say no. They convince the team to let their child stay in the same school with his brothers, the classmates he’s had and the friends he’s made.

How can a teacher without special training serve his special needs?

Turlock special education teacher Nancy Snodgrass, now retired, was among a select panel of educators on the Statewide Task Force on Special Education, tasked with answering that question.

Her subgroup focused on teacher preparation concluded that special and regular education teacher training programs need to have more in common.

“There’s a big disconnect between special ed and gen ed teachers,” Snodgrass said at her Turlock home. “They really need to have a common trunk of knowledge. Instead, everyone has their little area.”

Their recommendations call for more training for veteran teachers and principals.

“We have administrators throughout California that have never been teachers. How are they going to mentor instruction?” she asked.

It takes a team to make inclusion work, she said, adding that at its best, inclusion benefits all the kids in a classroom.

“In study after study after study, pairing teachers who can work together and truly co-teach helps all the students,” Snodgrass said.

Yet about half of California’s special education students, 52 percent, are largely included in general education, the report notes, and that includes those getting just one specific service, such as speech therapy. Nationwide, just over 61 percent of special education students attend regular classes.

Teachers find the diversity already in California classrooms daunting, the panel found, and most feel unprepared to serve children with special needs. Meanwhile, special education teachers have scant training in covering grade-level subject matter, lessening the chances that a student put in special education classes will ever be ready to rejoin the mainstream.

Snodgrass, who is bilingual, worked with English learners when teachers suspected the child also had a learning disability.

“The law is, for it to be a disability, it can’t be due to lack of instruction,” she explained.

When an English learner tests at a low level, is it a lack of learning ability, or is it really just not understanding the vocabulary of what’s being taught, or not being able to explain it on the test?

“Everyone on the committees had their own area of passion,” Snodgrass said. “I wanted to make sure the English learner voice was being heard.”

Providing extra language development for English learners, extra social supports for foster children and extra literacy help for poor kids usually falls to general educators. Special educators are trained to work with learning disabilities.

Holding the credentials of both realms, Snodgrass worked easily in both, but she would call herself a general education teacher first, whose extra training helped a wide range of students in all kinds of ways.

“We have to get away from labeling, and we have to start with educators,” she said.

But the panel was realistic, she added. “We don’t expect to have things happen overnight.”

The report calls for practical, prioritized changes, and she hopes her year-plus of work on it will help spur them forward.

“We don’t want it to become just another document that sits on a shelf,” she said.

This story was originally published July 17, 2015 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Diversity in every class calls for all teachers to master wider range of skills."