Interview Of A Special Education Teacher

Mrs. Hay has taught 8 years in education with 7 of these years at Carroll County Schools. In her time, all 7 of her years at Carroll Co. have been in special education. The last 4 years she has mainly been in 2nd grade Special Education. When she first started, she taught at a charter school with 9 children and all 9 children had IEPs, and she states “I was essentially doing the job of a special education teacher without realizing it.” In our time together, we discussed some of the challenges and highlights of a being a special education teacher. Mrs. Hay mentioned that “one of the most challenging things of being a sped teacher is being able to stay on top of the amount of daily/weekly data paperwork that goes along with monthly IEP meeting

Mrs. Hay mentions that she utilizes technology and Google classroom to communicate with the families on a consistent, daily basis. She also talks about how she creates newsletters and other communication pieces similar to that of the general education teacher for students to have. At open houses, she states that she will pass out her information to every student, not just the students on her caseload so that all families and students in the school are aware of her role within the school community. The biggest shift that Mrs. Hay has encountered through her time is the setup from “all resource” to “collaborative teaching” for her students. She discussed how she used to have her students most of the day with little emphasis of usage of the general education classroom, and now she is spending most of her time “pushing in” and providing support mostly in general education classrooms and the students have become “our students” compared to “my student.” Mrs. Hay addressed CEC Standard 7 here as she is constantly in collaboration with all of the individuals who are involved in the lives of her students from families, teachers, and other supports (speech, OT, etc.) to help her students have successes in the

Mrs. Hay essentially “ranted” as she stated about the work she does beyond the classroom for her position. She stated, “When I first became a sped teacher, I asked, “how do we get all of this stuff done? She said we are magicians, Desirae. I laughed and thought she was crazy, but now I tell others the same thing.” She talked about the many hats she wears from a schedule master, a general education supporter, behavior management, a small group instructor, a de-escalation expert, a district mentor, and many more. She states, “Many of these hats general education teachers know about, and also, have on their plate but forget that I am one person and trying to be support for 7 of them along with my 15 students. Sometimes, there just isn’t enough of me or my time to get it all done every single time without some failures being attached.” She also described that it can be extremely difficult to find a balance between modifying work, giving time to work on completing general education assessments and assignments, and working on academic or social IEP goals. Mrs. Hay discussed giving some responsibilities to other members of the school to help. For example, she assesses her student’s behavior with daily logs that help track for data purposes specific actions students have throughout the day and how many times they occur. This aligns to standard 4 of CEC with