Hello, I have a frustration (of course) and also a nagging need to hear from others on this..... This is my 11th year teaching, and my 7th year in special ed. I am curious to know how other schools/districts handle incoming students from outside the distrct who have already been identified, specifically those who have been identified as needing a self-contained classroom 100% of the time. My school only has 1 sped program, and that's the resource program that I run. I service students with mild disabilities who are pulled from 30-90 mins/day. There are more restrictive programs in other schools in the district for kids with more needs. When a child registers at my school, if they have an IEP that states that he/she needs a self-contained classroom 100% of the time, my district's administrators (main Sped dept) have decided that we need to make an attempt to keep that student in his/her home school (my school, for example) until we can prove otherwise that it just won't work out! So we run around like maniacs trying to figure out how to work with a child when we so obviously have inappropriate services for him/her......document what happens.....make a zillion phone calls, have multiple Behavior Intervention Plan & IEP meetings, until all avenues are exhausted and the Administration is called in and finally agrees to move the child to a more restrictive environment! I don't know why my district doesn't trust outside districts' testing results, data collection, recommendations, and active IEPs! So....my question is.....does any other district have this insane method?
Wow. Intense. In my district if a child is coming in with an IEP, the family meets with someone from the sped dept before being assigned a school, b/c as you are indicating, our specific types of sped classes are building-specific. That is taken into consideration before they get put into a school, although often a change is made after a few weeks or months. I'm sorry you have such craziness!
In our district, when the new child arrives - we have what's called a "Transfer ARD" -- we meet as a group (Social Worker, Parent, Administrator, etc) like a regular IEP meeting, and review the child's previous IEP. All attempts are made to place the child in the exact placement that they were in with the previous district. This means, if a child comes from a self contained class, they are put there. If they come from a behavior unit, they are put there. To the best of our knowledge, we do this. Sometimes we find that the placement is inappropriate. They have a "permanent ARD" after thirty days to determine permanent placement.
Teachersk, I like your system.....you honor the existing IEP AND take into account the present status, too. Interesting.....
