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Additional Posts in Special Education Teachers
I’m new to covering as a Teacher in Sped in Washington State.I just started online College to get a BA in Elementary Education.I have been a Para in Sped for 7yrs & 7 months now.My Teaching will start on August 24,2022.I know nothing about the paperwork or to set up curriculum for the kids.We deal with Preschool to 8th grade.Some Head Start kids which are 3yrs old to 4yrs old.I am kinda on my own for curriculum. Our kids do a lot on laptops for Reading,Math,and some writing.They use to journals.
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Coach
Make the time for writing them at school. Tell the gen ed teachers they have to be written before anything else. If you and I aren't getting paid extra we shouldn't have to put in time outside the school day. Sometimes it isn't a bad thing to be selfish and put the IEPs first especially if you are an inclusion or resource teacher
Make them a priority since they are a legal binding document.
Enthusiast
I don’t think teachers are paid enough in the first place.
I’ve been in special education for over 20 years and we have never been given extra pay for the paperwork, and time for meetings, so I definitely agree! Most SPED teachers get paid the same as general education teachers. I know of only a few districts that will pay a stipend to their sped teachers for the extra duties they have but often districts consider it part of our job duties as sped teachers to do the extra work without extra pay!
I’m not certain how everyone will take this but my district pays an extra $500 per year to spedEd teachers. We don’t get the extra time needed to do paperwork either. I suppose it’s safe to say misery loves company.
Completely agree. Need to get the unions involved!
I have tried but they will not get involt
Coach
In our contract special education teachers get a half day to write IEPs but not a lot of people take advantage because our principal gives us a hard time about taking time off when there are no subs. As a non tenured teacher I've only taken advantage of it once when I had 3 meetings in 1 week and the reaction I got from him has kept me for asking for it ever again :/ next year I'll be tenured so after that I'll definitely take advantage!!!
How frequently do you get 1/2 day?
My district did pay extra this year because we had so many revisions done during the school year. However, no extra time was given to do them. I am going into my 3rd year as a resource teacher and was grateful for the extra $ but honestly, I 'd have appreciated extra time for the writing of IEP's more. I have such a large caseload that my aide and I barely had a moment outside push in or pull out to breathe. I wrote my IEP's and revisions at home. Yes! All of them. Literally no time at work and I don't spend tons of time at work after hours because I have elementary age kids at home. This year was rough.
Coach
At my school the resource teacher takes two weeks off from pulling kids to get the IEPs written or will give the kids busy work in the resource room. It's not worth letting your job get mixed in with your family time for what teachers get paid.
I am new to being a licensed teacher, but not to the world of working with students with significant support needs. I am shocked at the amount of paperwork. Now I know why the teachers I worked for in the past were always at the computer! I have a real dilemma between paperwork and the teaching I want to do.
Yes, template format is the easiest way to get through writing IEPs. Unfortunately, I end up completed my at home free of distractions.
Enthusiast
In my district we get three sped days per year per contract. Our previous administration team was not supportive to SPED and acted as though the days didn’t exist. But our last principal (gone now after one year), had been a special education teacher and things got better under him; we were explicitly told to use those days.
Here in md bcps we donot get compensated anymore for being Spec. Ed. Teacher but we truly should be.
Our district uses a program called Goalbook, which has dramatically decrease this time consuming task to making it manageable, plus we get a $25 stipend per each written one. YEAH! 🥳
Subject Expert
A stipend for each IEP written is an interesting idea. Mine usually take 4 hours each…$100 per IEP sounds like a reasonable stipend to me. I’ll propose it to our union for the next negotiation period. Thanks!
We have never been given extra time or wages to write IEPs or hold meetings here in Wyoming. It is considered part of our job and we either use our planning time, or do them before or after school. I have worked on IEPs at home in the evenings on numerous occasions throughout my teaching career. Quarterly Progress Reports are also handled this way.
Time we start getting time and/or compensation
I tend to work on mine at home, as well
I have a lot of “drop down” text options, which does help!
I can't help but think this is silly. It's part of our job. Do your high school English teachers get paid extra to read, comment on and grade 100+ essays or research papers every time they assign one? How about physics teachers correcting science labs?
Mentor
I will say, I would like some respect from my regular education teachers. They have such a skewed idea of what we do. There is no grading papers during class. We are helping from bell to bell. Yet when I was teaching inclusion in high school many of my regular education teachers taught the lesson, let the students go, and grade papers. Sped teachers can’t do this.
I had a regular education teacher tell me when I was considering moving to regular ed it is way harder. I said it’s not. It’s different. Don’t diminish what I do. I work hard!
I completely understand. I usually end up taking a lot home if I can’t find the time at school. Sometimes I have to turn everything over to the paras so they can run the class while I do paperwork if I’m swamped.
I agree
Mentor
I agree it is time consuming. I’m not sure we should get paid more, at least at the high school level. I have 80 students in my classes, my regular education counterparts are maxed at 125. I can’t even imagine being an ELA teacher. The grading they do alone equals out to be the extra time needed to manage my caseload.
I have been in education 30 years and worked Gen Ed, special day class and Resource. They are different but Resource is the most challenging. Mandates change at district, state, and federal levels. Lawyers are more involved and parental demands are up.
It would be great to teach their kid one on one, but excessive meetings take time from teaching students. Writing reports even beyond 25 pages takes time. And don’t forget the multiple meetings for just one kid. Progress on goals and request to Gen Ed teachers for information on IEPS which come back late or not at all. Then there are the other services like OT, SLP, school psychologist, etc. who are slow and seldom on time with information to write up the IEP. Don’t forget Administration with their demands along with parents. Hopefully you don’t have an incompetent teacher assistant who can’t manage the children. This year I was blessed with one who teaches well.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my job as Resource teacher. I’d just like to enjoy teaching more than all the paperwork. More money, longer day, and less interference you bet! It won’t happen before I leave the profession. Lol