LREs

          My school underwent a Quality Review earlier this year. A quality review is when people from the district come into a school for 3 days and grade us based on what they see. These reviewers are not always the same from year to year. As I mentioned in my first post, I teach in a school for children with Autism; however, the quality reviewers do not necessarily have experience or any special type of knowledge on working with children with special needs, never mind run one. One reviewer was a principal of a District 75 school (District 75 is the special ed district in NYC), but her school was not for children with Autism. This year, the reviewers graded our school using general education guidelines. Up until this year, each year my school underwent Quality Review, we were given the grade of "Well Developed" which is equivalent to an A. This year, we received "Proficient" which is equivalent to a C. Needless to say our principal was not thrilled. Then we got the detailed report. According to the report, our 8:1:1s and 12:1:1 were not "academically rigorous" enough. For those of you who are not familiar with how special education classes are broken down, let me explain it to you. In our school classes are made up of 6:1:1s (6 students to one teacher and one paraprofessional), 8:1:1 (8 students...) 12:1:1 and Inclusion, in which students attend general education classes and are pulled out for services and special help. According to the Free and Appropriate Public Education Act, every child has the right to a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment (LRE). This means that students, including students with special are to be placed in as close to a "regular" classroom setting that they can effectively learn in that suits their needs. In a school like mine, that is supposed to mean that if our students can learn in a larger group size, they should be placed in an 8:1:1 or a 12:1:1, no matter where they are academically. These reviewers mistakenly believed that since these students were in a larger class, they should be "higher" academically than some of them actually are. One of the most deceiving characteristics of children with Autism is their "echolalic" ability. These children can be very verbal and come off as rather social, but be completely lacking in academic skills. Just because these students can come up and converse with you on a seemingly grade appropriate level, does not mean that they are doing academics on that same level. I have worked with children who are very street smart, and can talk a pretty good game, but do not know their letters, colors and even their own age and birthday. The only reason our 6:1:1 classes were not scrutinized is because the classes they saw had children who were nonverbal and more clearly low functioning. All of our children learn at their own speed and level. I teach a 6:1:1 class, and some of my students have exchanges that sound like very appropriate social interactions, but when you look closely, you will see that a lot of the phrases are things they heard on TV or in conversations other people around them have. Last year, I had a student (M) taken out of my class because he was considered "too high" compared to the rest of my students and needed to be placed in a higher class. In actuality, however, he wasn't even the highest student in my class. He just seemed higher from the outside looking in because he is vocal, but the student who was actually the highest (E) was at least a grade level above him, if not two. E could read, count, and answer questions, while M couldn't read and would only repeat the questions he was asked. The reason E didn't seem as high as M to outsiders, was because if you watch both M and E during their free time, M would play and seek out the attention of his teachers, while E would sit and stim. E, up until this year, rarely sought the attention of others, and would sometimes require prompting and redirection to get him to acknowledge you. I, myself didn't even realize quite how high E actually is, until this year. I was fortunate to have him in my class again, this time in a "high 6:1:1" so he was surrounded with classmates more along his academic level, (M is in my class this year as well) and he is still the highest student in my class. As my class stands right now, 5 of my students can read, write and are currently working on adding. 5 of my 6 are within 2 grade levels of their current ages, (the 6th is a little hard to decipher at the moment, as he tries his hardest to act like he doesn't know nearly as much as he does), and don't display any serious behaviors that would prevent them from excelling in a larger class. All of my students can work and learn in a group of 8, and according to the FAPE Act and LRE, they should be in an 8:1:1 class. However, because of the Quality Review, and the opinions of supposed "experts" who do not seem to know quite as much as they think they do, my guys are deemed "not high enough" for such a class. It kills me to see children being held down by bureaucrats who are so far removed from a classroom, assuming they've ever even worked in one to begin with. Chidren with Autism need classes designed to teach social skills, just as importantly, if not more important than academics, so to stick these children in smaller classes, sometimes in classes where socially, these students do not match at all, hurts them just as much if not more than if they put a 4th grader in a kindergarten class.