For all you teachers of electives, here's a bit of news. The DoE doesn't think we're teaching classes like everyone else. They think we're running things called "non-academic mainstreaming activities" — like LUNCH!
I found this out when I was googling the web yesterday looking for how many IEP kids are legally allowed to be mainstreamed into my general music classes.
Never found the answer to that, but I did come across something called "A Parent's Guide to Understanding the IEP Process." It's a pdf of what looks like a power point presentation given at some kind of parent convention in the spring of 2008.
Check out the last sentence in this paragraph below, where it talks about the kinds of subjects we all thought we were "teaching":
Maybe it's a good thing to be doing "non-academic mainstreaming activities" with my kids. It might mean I don't have to write lesson plans anymore, or even get observed.
I says what's good for the cafeteria lady is good enough for me.
As a special education teacher I have always placed my parpros as well as myself in phy ed, music and art to support those teachers and the special ed kiddos. It is so often that success in those classes open academic learning doors for my students.
ReplyDeleteNone of it is fluff. It all matters.