As a SPED teacher, do you feel like your admin "gets" your students and what you do for them? If not, what would you like them to know?

Administration over all has an important place of thinking of the school as a whole. I understand this can be difficult when it comes to SPED.

However, I have not felt my admin even understands what I do in the sense that SPED IS intervention. My biggest challenge is trying to balance grade level curriculum opportunities with current levels. I do not cover all grade level and I do not always do what I wish I could with their goals mainly because there are TOO MANY students at a time and it has been said that “rigger in grade level” is more important than “closing the gap”. So yeah. I don’t play games. I do whats best for my kids. I am full instruction/ self contained 6th.

Out of the four principals I’ve worked under, I feel as if only one of them actually took the time to get to understand my job, me, my kids, and what we did together. The rest seemingly had no clue what I did each day.
The main piece of advice I’d emphasize is communication. That’s the best year I’ve had so far was with a principal who communicated very well, letting staff know via email each day when she or other staff members were out, if they had an emergency, family situation, etc. It kept us all connected and interwoven with each other’s lives, like an actual family, and we felt more in tuned as a school, even if we didn’t have time to sit around and chat.
It helped us always know when someone was out-even admin-(it wasn’t a huge secret!) and it helped us build a real sense of morale and caring for one another’s jobs and successes.

I want my administrator to know that one SPED teacher cannot do multiple grade levels AND subjects and only be given ONE conference time and expected to meet daily with PLC AND get ARD paperwork done is next to IMPOSSIBLE!

I am very lucky to have a smaller school with one administrator who is very supportive of my students and includes them in book clubs and other things.

I feel that admin supports me and my self contained students. I do feel that admin fails to understand that the self-contained classroom is not where the school puts all the behavior problem students. It is a work in progress though and is getting better all the time.

My administration is very understanding of the students but needs to require everyone to go through the same process when changing student placements. Personal opinions / friendships should be left at the door when a student is being discussed.

My administrator has no idea about the special education process or the paperwork involved. He is more concerned with culturally proficient process for our children of color but that includes students with disabilities and acceptance.. at least to me. We are doing in wrong in my building... I feel like a door mat for everyone else. We get the low academic and the behavior without the support. It would be nice if he had shown any interest in four years. And he is supposed to evaluate me in the special education domain of my summative evaluation with no idea what I do every day.

My Principal gets it, but still consults with me (ESE Coordinator). My AP doesn’t have a clue.

I do! I’m so thankful for that part of my job.

In my experience, many administrators want to take it easy on my Special Needs kids because they have a disability. Of all kiddos; they need matter of fact and by the book discipline. If you don't do that at the beginning, then you have no way to "go back" and give them reprieve later.

Mine support me, but I feel like they don’t completely grasp my classroom. Being the only one in the district of my class I can understand can be tricky, but I feel they tend to avoid my students and undermine their capabilities. I also feel like they don’t understand why I hold them to high standards and expectations. I feel that they don’t have high hopes for my students. On another note though they do trust me in what I am doing they just tend to ignore me.