Activities related to participating in my campus research
project, which is to meet with the special education inclusion department to
review and possibly revise the current SPED Teacher Inclusion program, have
included monthly meetings which include my Assistant Principal over special
education, myself, the special education team leader, and the special education
inclusion teachers. Initially we began polling our current staff to see what we
are doing as inclusion teachers in the classroom. We have then transitioned
into now discussing what is working for us. To date, this had been the extent of our
meetings. The meetings have not been as productive as I would like. Our
meetings begin on a positive note; however they soon become a time for
complaining about current legislative and administrative issues which impede
our progress in the classroom. I find we are having to quickly redirect and
refocus on our purpose. We have gathered a lot of data regarding what is woring
in the inclusion classrooms on our campus; although I feel we have addressed
this issue, the AP has continued to want to gather more input. I believe it is
time to move to the next phase of inquiry which is to discuss what we believe
is not working in our current inclusion program.
My role in these meetings is to work with our Assistant
Principal over special education and to help design the process for which we
will work on this project, report to her the findings, devise a plan of attack
to modify the proceedings, and then to analyze the results of our findings.
After this, we will then work collaboratively with a team of inclusion teachers
to determine what we can do to: a) be more effective in the classroom, and b)
modify the program to increase student performance.
