tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820189143681637300.post7059544588655052016..comments2023-09-09T07:37:47.762-04:00Comments on Education Lessons From A Sparkly District: The End of Special Education Part VI: AZ Parents, Heads Up! Julie Borsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15205661029847875010noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3820189143681637300.post-83731923848818422062017-02-17T14:30:22.023-05:002017-02-17T14:30:22.023-05:00Hello from Arizona. Was surprised by this post on ...Hello from Arizona. Was surprised by this post on SB 1317 as I am the President-Elect of the Arizona School Boards Association (ASBA) and wasn't aware it was a problem. When I looked into it, I found that is because our association supports the legislation. <br /><br />Don't get me wrong, our Legislature is not public (district) education friendly and they do propose some crazy stuff. ASBA supports this bill though because it allows the district the ability to use its existing resources to best meet the needs of students wit special needs. <br /><br />It’s first important to understand the student’s IEP Team is required to agree that a non-SPED certified provider is the best provider for the student. The IEP team includes the student’s certified special education teacher and the student’s parents. We are not talking about letting districts randomly reassign students to non-SPED teachers at will.<br /> <br />Here is a very pertinent example: An elementary student’s IEP may call for differentiated or specialized reading instruction. The school may have a fully certified reading coach, who is an expert in reading instruction, but does not hold a SPED endorsement, only a standard certificate with a reading endorsement. The student’s SPED teacher is of course fully capable of teaching a student reading, but may agree a reading coach with specialization would be better. This would free up said SPED teacher to provide other specialized instruction to students that no one else can provide. Under the current interpretation by the Arizona Department of Education (ADE), the reading specialist is not allowed to teach that student because anyone who provides instruction is required to have a SPED certificate.<br /> <br />All the bill does is allow the IEP team to use other certified educators to provide specialized instruction if they deem it appropriate.<br /> <br />I believe the portion of the IDEA policy that Ms. Borst references deals with people who are employed AS special education teachers. In our example, the reading specialist is NOT employed as a special education teacher. They are a reading specialist providing reading instruction to a student. No non-SPED teacher can take over primary responsibility for directing the instruction of a student with special needs. IDEA won’t allow that, and no one intends to do that.<br /> <br />Arizona has a critical teacher shortage (53% of our teacher positions are unfilled or filled by uncertified personnel) and special education teachers are harder to find than most. A big part of the reason for that is the fact that they are the lowest paid in the nation and we public (district) education advocates fight that situation (and plenty of other inequities in education) hard every single day. Even if not all of our state legislators are on-board, we definitely have the wellbeing of all our students (including those with disabilities) at the forefront of our fight and agree that our children deserve no less.<br /> <br />Finally, I believe it is important to note that literally no one signed up in opposition, the AZ Council for Exceptional Children supports the bill, and it received a remarkable unanimous vote (from Republicans and Democrats) on the AZ Senate Third Reading. Although some SPED advocates may be wary of the bill, we believe it will actually result in better outcomes for some students and that is really what is important.Linda Lyonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12928993198529388797noreply@blogger.com