An Inclusion Teacher’s First Week of School

As an inclusion special education teacher, your first week of school can get hectic fast. You are playing the role of a resource to your coworkers and students, as well as trying to organize and get to know your caseload. You may not even know where to begin. Completing some beginning of year forms for intervention specialists can help get you organized fast.  Here are some tips to organizing your first few weeks of back to school.

Individualized Education Programs (IEPs)

Individualized Education Programs (IEPs): get your hands on the list of your special education students and their IEPs as soon as you can. You will need to become familiar with their individual needs in order to clearly explain them to the regular education teacher (reg ed teacher). Regular education teachers appreciate knowing ahead of time what accommodations and modifications they are required to provide.

Share the information with general education teachers.

You want the team members to be aware of your students’ needs.  Explain to the team (show and tell) where the student’s special education files (ETR/IEP) are kept, and encourage them to read when time allows.   You can create an IEP at a glance or a checklist for the team members. Many IEP writing programs will create an IEP at a glance and can be easily printed. Also,  I have created one of my own that you can grab here.  Keep the information short and to the point. Include only the most important information the teachers need to know.

I would copy the IEP at a glance for each teacher and always enjoyed hand-delivering these documents. I wanted the teachers to recognize that I was the person/resource they could approach if they had any special education questions or concerns.

Communicate with your parents

You will want to communicate with parents early and often.  It’s a great way for parents to realize that everyone is on the same team and for the same reason… student success. Provide parents with an easy way to get in touch with you.  I also like to send home an introductory note that introduces myself, reminds them of important IEP dates, and asks them questions about their students. Questions include; student’s interests, strengths, IEP progress the student has made and any information they feel I should know about their child.

Get to know your students

The most important item in an Inclusion teacher’s first week is to get to know your students.  It is important to start building relationships from day 1. This may be difficult because you may not have a certain time scheduled in the day to see your students. Especially with older students, it may be necessary to be discreet when pulling them aside to talk with them. Often times, they don’t want others to know they are talking with the intervention specialist or receiving services.  Invite them to come talk to you during a study hall, intervention period, or before school. If you are planning on being involved in the general education classroom get to know all of the students whether they receiving services or not. Being involved with all of the students tends to make special education students feel more comfortable in asking for assistance. With older students, it’s great to get them involved with their IEP, ask them if they know about it, what they feel works best, can they think of any changes that need to be made? Talk to them about their goals for the year, and future.

Organize meetings for the year

Start organizing dates and meetings for the year. You will thank yourself for having everything organized at the beginning of the year and written in several places, those IEP meetings sneak up on you fast. To help organize myself I create a spreadsheet, that includes annual review dates, ETR dates, the date two months before the annual review to begin scheduling, the date one month before the annual review to begin writing the draft, and a draft send home goal date.  I then write all of these dates in my calendar or planner for the year, I always find it helpful to have it in several places.

You can find my version of these beginning of year forms for intervention specialist, along with other helpful special education information in my store.

For more tips on how to include the whole team in the IEP check out my blog post.

5 Must-Do Tasks That Involve the Whole Team in an IEP Meeting

What is one thing you always make sure to get done in the first week?