By Colleen Cestari and Caitlynn Young
Definition
Effectively communicating data about a student to all involved parties who are a part of the student’s IEP team.
Data
- The data can be collected through assessments, classroom work, and observing a student in their classroom environment, as well as their home life
- Data can include academic results, as well as information on behavioral observations and concerns
- Can be collected by any stakeholder
Stakeholders
- The “stakeholders” are those who are involved in the child’s academic success and daily well-being.
- Can include general education teachers, legal guardians, psychologists, special education teachers, family members and anyone else who comes in contact with the student on a regular basis.
- These stakeholders make up the child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) team.
Expected Outcomes
- Have all parties fully understand where the child is at (behaviorally and intellectually) and what is expected of them
- Developing an understanding of each assessment and what each assessment is testing
- Giving a clear understanding to families about special education terms and hopeful outcomes
- Being able to develop goals and objectives based on the assessment data and the child’s abilities while also explaining how you hope to achieve those goals
How to implement in a school setting?
- IEP meetings or any team meeting with all involved parties
- Emails/phones calls with the families or teachers often
- “Red folders” given to general education teachers at the beginning of the year, which provide a brief overview about the students and their goals and objectives
Steps for Implementation
- Do assessments on the child
- Summarize and review all data making it clear and precise for others to read
- Review data and form goals and objectives for the student (rough draft)
- Call a meeting to discuss findings and goals and objectives
- Meet with team to talk about findings
- Make a plan to achieve goals and objectives based off of assessments
Tips for Families About SPED
- Definitions of terms for IEP meetings
- A link to the rights of the family and a simplistic definition and expectations of families from this list
- Explaining the role family members have in their child’s educational success and how they can help their child in SPED (Special Education)
- Definition of special education and explanation of the difference between a resource environment and a self contained classroom
- SPED Tip Sheet (Google document)
Tips on Virtual Learning
- Provide links or listings of websites that work well for web-based education
- How meetings and family-teacher contact are changing
- Discuss with families the best way to share assessment data/contact them
- Virtual Tips – Parents (Google document)
- Virtual Tips – Teachers (Google document)
References
Blackwell, W. H. & Stockall, N. (2019). RISC: Four steps for interpreting and communicating high-stakes assessment results. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 51(4), 265-275. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0040059919826027
Towles-Reeves, E., Kleinert, H., & Muhomba, M. (2009). Alternate assessment: Have we learned anything new? Exceptional Children, 75(2), 233-252. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F001440290907500206
McLeskey, J., Maheady, L., Billingsley, B., Brownell, M., & Lewis, T. (2019). High-leverage practices for inclusive classrooms. Routledge.