I'm not sure if this is a vent (I'm not really upset - I'm more confused) or just a general question.
For those of you that have the inclusion class (or know about them), how many students do you have in comparison to the rest of the classes? I volunteered to be the inclusion class this year (1st year for us to do it this way), but I guess I assumed I'd have a smaller class. I have more students than the other regular classes! Is that normal? I don't know exactly how many sped kids I'll have yet, but I'll have 24 3rd graders. That seems like an awful lot for inclusion. I just hope the sped teacher can help me keep up with all the IEP modifications, etc...
I hope I don't sound like I'm whining - I guess because I've never done this before I'm surprised. I should've asked more questions before I volunteered.
I seen inclusion classes that have 1/2 sped and 1/2 regular with some gifted. The class size is bigger than other classes. Normally both teachers are in the class teaching. You need to work closely with the sped teacher. Good luck
Wow! I teach a 4th grade inclusion class, and I usually have a much smaller class. This year, I'll have 16 compared to 23 or 24 in the other classes. If I were you, I'd be whining, too!
I don't think we have Inclusion classes at our site. However, this year I will have 2 sp ed students. One has Spina Bifida and the other has Cerebal Palsy. I'll have 20 students total. This is new to me, too.
de'anna
THis is my 5th year doing inclusion. My class is normally "more" full than others but half the day I have help from the SPED teacher. The other half of the day about four of my kids are pulled for a couple hours into a SPED room, so this reduced my class size. The first couple of years I felt abused as they stacked my class with either gifted or sped students. I had to have two sets of lesson plans for everything! The inclusion teachers revolted and they made a change so that it would be more evenly divided up. The admin never let me go over my official limit (28)in my homeroom, but if a student from another class needed sped services throughout the year they were pulled into my room which at one point had me at 32 kids for a couple of classes! Yes it was frustrating and there are times that I swear I won't do it the next year but teaching has never been so rewarding!!! I have had such sweet classes. So, yes! I feel your pain! Your Sped teacher will help you with all the IEPs and such and you'll learn sooo much. I am a much better, understanding teacher because I have had to have a "whatever it takes" attitude with these classes. I honestly don't think you'll regret it, but demand support if you need it. I do sometimes feel my admin doesn't know how much more it takes to be that inclusion teacher and sometimes I don't feel appreciated. But hang in there, God has called on you to do this for a reason girl!
All our classes (regular and inclusion) are the same size. The inclusion class is just the class that has all the grade level sp ed students in the mix. The Sp Ed teacher/assistant comes into that particular classroom and works with ALL students being sure not to single out the sp ed students.
I have worked in an inclusion situation many times and in our system, it simply doesn't work. Until the Sp Ed department hires enough people to do the job correctly...it won't work.
It's not that I have a bad attitude towards inclusion...in an ideal situation I think it would be wonderful...but when the Sp Ed teacher and assistant are doing inclucion with all grades 1-5 and we all have reading at the same time...duh, it doesn't take a rocket scienctist!!! lol
Our inclusion classrooms have the same numbers as the rest. The SPED teachers and assistants are constantly in and out of that classroom. They also pull the SPED students (and others at times) when extra-extra help is needed.
During May testing, they were of course pulled and tested separately.
All of classes are about the same due to our growing population. New students are moving in ALL of the time due to all of the new home constructions so we all stay pretty full most of the time.
We do tend to leave a space open in the ESL classes in case we have a new ELL student move in and we need a place for them, but the inclusion class is the same size as the others.
But.... the word on the street is that I'm doing inclusion this year in my grade level and I still have 26 on my roll. The sped teachers say its so great because you get a sped teacher in the room with you for a whole hour a day and a parapro for approximately 30 minutes, but what about the other huge amounts of your day that you are wrestling with large groups of kids with issues? We have gifted kids getting pulled out for their program, we have resource kids going out, inclusion coming in, early intervention program kids going out, and ESL kids going in and out. Its like a revolving door. I get confused. I'm getting anxious again.... ::::
We are full inclusion. Our school is close to 25% special ed (I'm not kidding!) so it just wouldn't be fair to put them all in one class. I had 6 LD's, 2 ED's, and 2 GT's last year. However, we do top out at 20 kids/class. The other two second grade classes were very similar. We have one special ed teacher and one special ed aide for K, 1, and 2. Needless to say, help ran very thin.
Good luck with your year, it may be tough but it sure as heck will make you stronger!!
In my school, the inclusion classes always has a lower about of students. I believe this is district policy. It doesn't matter that they have the special ed teacher and aid for any portion of the day. I can't believe other schools allow those classes to actually have more in some cases. That is just wrong in my view.
Thanks so much to everyone. I'm not sure why, but I actually feel better! I think just knowing that this is how it's supposed to work eases my concerns for the whole situation. I still think it should have lower numbers, but I'll have to get over that.
On a lighter note.....I got my classroom mostly finished today! Whoo hoo! I'm going to do finishing touches in the morning (mostly writing student names on everything), and then the teachers officially start Wednesday. The kids will be here Friday!
We do not have separate special education classrooms - all our special needs students are part of the regular classroom. Some years I have had up to 50% of my class with some sort of learning disability or physical disability or both.
This upcoming year (in grade 3) I have 26 students and it looks like about 8 of them for sure will need to be on IEP's. We write our own IEP's as well.
To be honest there are times when the workload does seem overwhelming - but overall I have always enjoyed my classes even with all the different levels of abilities there can be.
I have had an inclusion class each year that I've taught. At my school, special needs students aren't counted any differently when considering class sizes (although we've tried to make an argument for it to the "powers that be"). So anyway, the inclusion homerooms are no smaller than the others. Unfortunately, our intervention specialists are spread very thin and often cannot be in the room with these students, when they are responsible for 4-6 homerooms, and some students who require pullout in certain areas. Also, we don't volunteer for an inclusion homeroom...we just know it's part of your teaching responsibilities.
In my school, the inclusion classes aren't smaller - but the special ed students are on the special ed teacher's roster. The regular teacher doesn't have to calculate grades for them. The special ed teacher and/or an aide is in the room for much of the day. Also, they get pulled out for standardized testing, and some other times too.
The inclusion teacher on my team last year had the same # of students as the rest of us, but she got the smallest, oddly shaped room! It used to be the teacher's lounge.
We are getting a lounge back this year and its going to be in a small room right across the hall from my classroom! THere will be a copy machine there! YAY!
Our inclusion classes generally aren't smaller (although they certainly should be!) last year I had 26, including 6 SLD, 2 EH, 1 dyslexic, and three that were 504 for ADHD. Wow! Was that a crew!!!!! The only difference was that I got an extra teacher and assistant for an hour.
We don't have special inclusion classrooms. The special ed kids are just with the rest of the school population (though we do have a Developmentally Disabled program for kids with severe DD and the medically fragile).
I just checked the standardized testing site to see our "official" numbers. When the class I'll be teaching this year did their grade 6 testing, 46% of them were identified as special needs. Last year, I had 48% identification in my class of 32 (with a split 7/8!) No special ed support (though I'm thankful that I used to teach special ed!)
That's pretty common in our school - we have a very high identification rate.
I've done inclusion for the past several years. The #1 thing I have issues with is the sp ed teacher does not plan with me or is not responsible for grading anything. They don't even turn i lesson plans in our school! i've tried unsuccessfully so far to reason with the admin right now I feel like the sp ed teacehr is nothng more than an aide with a degree. she Never teaches the lesson and really doesn't know what I'm doing uintil she walks in the door! My ideal inclusion class would be a well planned by both teachers and a shared teaching model. I'm going to try again this year to insist on this-let's see how far I get!
07-30-2007, 07:01 PM
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