SCHOOL ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT #4
Unity of purpose
Federal law (P.L. 94-142), entitled the Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (IDEA), specifies that children identified as exceptional shall be provided "a free appropriate education·in the least restrictive public educational alternative as determined by the student's Pupil Evaluation Team (P.E.T.) and set forth in his or her Individualized Education Plan (I.E.P.)." While the special-education policy of S.A.D. #4 reflects federal and state regulations, the goals of the special-education services program, K-12, address the specific ways in which these regulations will be carried out.
The main purpose of special-education services is to recognize and to respond to differing student aptitudes and abilities, interests, attitudes, and goals by assisting teachers in developing and implementing instructional strategies which address all learning styles. The special-education staff work along with the regular education staff to assist students in becoming responsible and able decision makers; informed and responsible consumers; environmentally and politically conscious citizens; responsible workers; and self-sufficient managers of their daily lives, to the maximum extent possible.
Special-education staff are committed to using teaching techniques that match the learning style of each student with whom they work. Psycho-educational evaluative testing is critical as the first step in determining whether a student has a specific disability. When students are referred by the P.E.T., these interdisciplinary evaluations are completed by special-education teachers, contracted psychologists, and other professionals as appropriate. Psycho-educational evaluations are per-formed every three years on students receiving special-education services.
To the maximum extent possible, expectations are aimed to provide inclusion of all students in regular-education programs, as detailed in the M.S.A.D. #4 Special Education Policies and Procedures manual. The program offers resource, self-contained, and composite services, as well as consultation. Resource services are provided to students who are identified as needing services from an appropriately certified teacher less than half of their day for academic and/or behavioral instruction. Self-contained services are provided to students who are identified as needing services from an appropriately certified teacher for the majority of the day (50% or more) for their academic and behavioral instruction. Composite services are provided when the school unit does not have sufficient numbers of students to provide separate resource and self-contained services. Consultation services are provided to regular-education staff to support them in designing and modifying lessons consistent with a student's I.E.P. In addition, students with special needs have opportunities to receive special transportation, career counseling, nursing, speech therapy, occupational and physical therapy, transition planning, and mental health counseling services from MSAD #4, as deemed appropriate by the P.E.T.
Each student receiving special services from the self-contained and resource rooms has an I.E.P. developed annually in accordance with federal and state regulations. Each I.E.P. describes specific objectives, based on the evaluated needs of the student, that the student will attempt to achieve within one year. The I.E.P. also includes modifications that regular education teachers are responsible for making in the regular education classroom, as well as the consultation services offered to the regular education teachers by the special-education teacher. Depending on the focus of each student's I.E.P., students will receive tutorial, remedial, or corrective instruction to acquire skills in the following areas: expressive and receptive communication (including reading and writing), study and organizational skills, daily living (including self care; domestic skills such as cooking and housekeeping, and basic mathematics, social studies, and science); community survival; vocational training; and self-advocacy. In addition, most students need hands-on practice in the actual environments in which the skills will be needed in order to master the skills. Even then, some students may need guided practice with physical assistance and repetition. Students learn best when the skill to be learned is first task-analyzed and presented in a step-by-step sequence.
All students need consistency, positive reinforcement, structure, and praise to master skills and to develop the self-confidence to apply those skills constructively in their lives. Special and regular education staff will work cooperatively to ensure that each student with special needs is benefiting from instruction in the mainstreamed educational program. Specifically, special and regular education staff will provide an optimal learning environment that consists of a place with minimal visual, auditory, or kinesthetic distractions, that offers each student individualized instructional attention from the teacher, and gives the student opportunities to observe, interact with, and learn from their peers who do not have special needs.
"For exceptional students between the ages 15 and 20, a student's P.E.T. may make appropriate adaptations of the specific state and local graduation requirements to meet those unique skills and abilities that result from the student's exceptionality. The P.E.T. shall specify those adaptations in the student's Individualized Education Program, along with the projected date of graduation. Unless the local school board has adopted specific competency-based graduation requirements applicable to all students, [S.A.D. #4] shall grant a regular high-school diploma to exceptional students who have completed the graduation requirements in their I.E.P.'s when the adaptations that were made to the state statutory requirements in 20-A M.R.S.A. ss 4722 do not eliminate and replace those statutory requirements, but instead provide reasonable modifications of the specific statutory requirements to reflect limitations resulting from the [student's] exceptionality."
Because having a special need is a life-long challenge, special educators and other school personnel or community and governmental agencies will develop transitional plans and provide services through the I.E.P. process for students age 14 and older so that these students will continue to use the skills needed to function successfully in their communities. These transitional plans should encourage students to optimize their talents and skills beyond high school and to function as independently as possible in their living and working environments. Transitional plans include assistance in securing post-secondary education and/or jobs in the local community or in other communities, as well as assistance in pursuing residential options and any other post-high-school interests.