I teach a HS class of severely handicapped students. My district has had a high turnover of directors, and it seems as though there is no consistency with rules and procedures because of it. Our last director told us to write goals that addressed deficits in basic skills, i.e., counting, reading fluency, etc, and our IEP software allowed us to note the standard that the goal related to. Our new director is telling us that our goals should be based on modified common core standards. So even though the student might need some instruction in basic skills, following the common core standards takes precedence (which at the HS level means comparing themes, finding evidence to support the author's purpose, etc.) I'm curious as to how other teachers of students with moderate/severe and multiple handicaps determine goals and what areas of need you address.
The goals should pertain to what can be reasonably accomplished within an academic year. Like you won't get a student from a 3rd grade to a 10th grade level in one year. Make sure they're measurable. If they are severely multiply disabled and in self contained, is it a group that... will be staying in the district until 21? If so, they might need a few life skills goals - or depending on their career objectives per their transition plan - goals to help them achieve their transition plan
We are advised to "start at the standard" and break it down to find the step that the student needs to start at in order to eventually access the standard. The goal for that particular year doesn't have to be that the student will meet the standard. For example, if the standard is to identify the theme, you would keep going backwards until you find the skill that the student needs to start at. For mod/severe (and a lot of my mild/mod. too) I'm guessing that would be that in order to eventually be able to identify theme, the student's starting step would be to be able to actually access (read) the text first. So your goal could be fluency or decoding and you can still say the student is "working towards the standard." It's basically the same thing we've always done- writing goals based on needs- but now we just say in meetings that we're working on skills that will help the student "work towards the standards."
Thanks, Waterfall for your information. This common core thing is freakin' everyone out and they think by writing a more rigorous goal our students will perform better!
http://alex.state.al.us/specialed/curriculum.html If you scroll down you will see the "Extended Standards". That is what we use for our moderate to severe SPE students in Alabama. Here are the transition standards for Alabama - PDF file link https://fp.auburn.edu/institute/publications/documents/AlabamaTransitionStandards.pdf
If the students are not graduating with a diploma, they are on a modified curriculum and the goals should address what they are actually going to be working on.
