Special Education Diverse Learners Project Guidelines
Section 1: Abstract

This paper provides an overview of Butler College Prep, its demographics, and its programs and services for special needs students. It looks at curriculum and instruction efforts as well as at the role of the principal in the school and how he oversees special education services and promotes the power of collective efficacy to motivate and help teachers and parents collaborate. It concludes with a personal reflection on what I have learned during the course of this project and what challenges the school faces in terms of a leadership structure to close the achievement gap.

Section 2: Demographic Overview

Butler College Prep is in Southside Chicago. Its student body is 95% African American and 4% Hispanic, and it serves as a school for social justice and the arts (School Performance, 2017). The socio-economic background of the vast majority of the families of students is challenged. 98% of students receive free or reduced-rate lunches. 1 in 6 students at the school, approximately 100 students out of 600, has a disability. Data obtained from Illinois Network of Charter Schools (School Performance, 2017) divulged that 94.5% of the students came from low-income families, 16% of the students have learning disabilities, 20.2% of the students were homeless, and 1.5% of the students have limited English proficiency.

70% of staff are people of color and 50% of staff are black male teachers. These percentages help to show what the school is doing to reach out to students in the community by having teachers who they can relate to and who are representative of their own background.

Only 6% of students are taking early college coursework from grades 10 to 12 (Illinois at a Glance Report Card, 2019). Students have 7% ELA proficiency, 11% math proficiency, and 2% science proficiency (Illinois at a Glance Report Card, 2019). The data impacts instructional planning in the sense that the school focuses on boosting its students’ SAT scores. For the last three years, most of the students have been partially meeting or approaching state mandated goals on the PSAT in the areas of Math and English Language Arts. The main problem area for Butler College Prep, however, is math. The school has the instructional goal of improving the school’s students’ math score. 9th grade math students at Butler College have had a growth goal of 60 points from the Pre-PSAT to the Mid-PSAT. For the last 3 years, the 9th grade math students have not met their growth goals. Instruction is currently being retooled to focus on this area.

Section 3: Programs and Services

The full range of programs, related services and resources available in the school for addressing the educational needs of students with disabilities includes placement options, which, ranked from least restrictive to most restrictive, are:

· Honor – no extra support is provided and the student engages in self-directed learning to some extent

· General Education – no extra support and student is guided by the teacher in the classroom

· Co-taught – SPED teacher and general education teacher collaborating to provide assistance for the student

· Instructional Settting/Self-Contain – SPED teacher and para professional collaborating

· Function (most profound) – SPED teacher and two para professionals collaborating.

Related service options include:

· Speech pathologist to help students with speech challenges

· Occupational therapy to help students with movements

· Social worker to help students and their families with challenges

· Nurse to help students with health issues

· School psychologist to help students with mental health issues

Resources for providing special education services include having specialized staff, special classrooms for SPED, special learning and physical exercise equipment to support special needs, and parent education programs that focus on professional activities that parents can pursue.

Section 4: Curriculum and Instruction

Research-based curriculum used for literacy in the school consists of modified regular education materials designed for ELA students with unique learning needs. The connection to language acquisition theories is based on the work of Prabhu (1987) and the Japanese Association for Language Teaching (2005) both of whom focus on providing ELA students with new ways in which to acquire language through activities that promote active learning.

One curriculum unit for example that is research-based rests on the theory that task-based learning is helpful in giving students an opportunity to acquire language skills and exercise certain thinking skills (Prabhu, 1987). It also is compatible with the vision of teaching offered by the Japanese Association for Language Teaching (2005) in which tips on vocabulary are provided.

The unit focuses on vocabulary acquisition by building the vocabulary of the students through...…Project has been robust enough for me to see that special education for diverse learners is something that has to be taken very seriously by all stakeholders in order for it to work. It is not just a job that a teacher can do on his or her own. It takes the part of teachers collaborating with parents under the guidance and with the support of the principal along with the support of all colleagues. Teachers have to come together to support the initiative because it really is an issue that requires all hands on deck.

The role of the principal in the organization and delivery of special education services in the school is motivational and supportive more than anything else. The principal recognizes the need for a collaborative experience to take place and he promotes the concept of the power of collective efficacy, knowing that it does take the work and support of many different stakeholders for a goal of this nature to be reached consistently and effectively.

What is working at Butler College Prep is the fact that the school has a low turnover rate among teachers. This shows that teachers are investing in the school and the school is investing in the teachers. Few teachers become disillusioned and want to walk away, which indicates the school is doing something right and the teachers feel supported and like they have a real community here.

What might be done to strengthen the leadership structure to close the achievement gap between students with disabilities and their non-disabled peers is to define roles more clearly so that everyone knows what is expected of them when it comes to the task of closing the achievement gap. Some teachers do not realize that they have a part to play, just like some parents do not realize they have to be more involved in the academic lives of the children if they want to see them succeed. Some parents think the school should take care of everything and they do not even realize that the children are only in the school for a short time. Thus, getting teachers and parents aligned and on the same page where they are working together for the same end is the biggest leadership structural challenge the school faces.