Special education services are often as customized as possible for the students who need them. In fact, many schools now collaborate with families to create individualized education programs (IEPs) for each student who is eligible for special education services. With over 125,000 students in Minnesota alone who are eligible for special education, it is a challenge to create individualized programs that are able to make a difference for every student. Incorporating evaluation into special education programs can help schools refine their practices and make their classrooms more inclusive, engaging and supportive for all students. But how can services that are so individualized be evaluated? It requires a thoughtful collaboration between the evaluators, the schools, the students and their families.
In the Improve Group’s recent collaboration with Cecelia Dodge, we have worked with school districts to evaluate and refine special education services. We started with a philosophy that improving special education services can benefit all students. Then, we met with the local special education teams to learn what their goals and challenges were with their own programs.
For example, Burnsville Public Schools had recently changed how their services were structured for students with specific emotional and behavioral needs; they asked us to work with students, paraprofessionals, and teachers to learn how the services were going and what additional professional development could help strengthen their work. Using interviews, academic records, and observations, we identified their practices that were already working and discovered where there were new opportunities for connecting with their students.
We found that the districts we've worked with have been primarily interested reaching one of these goals:
- Helping students achieve their best possible academic outcomes while being supported and engaged at school
- Increasing teacher’s commitment, energy and effectiveness
- Improving collaboration with parents
Do you work with or in a school that is interested in assessing the effectiveness of its special education services? You can take this short self-assessment to help you determine the focus of your evaluation. Or, join the discussion with your peers at the MASE Best Practices Conference; we’ll be presenting evaluation ideas on Friday, May 9.
Please feel free to reach out to us at info@theimprovegroup.com – our evaluators would love to talk with you about what we’ve learned and share some ideas for your programs.