SPECIAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM

The Special Education and support staff at Evergreen Charter School is team of educators who are dedicated to meeting the social, emotional, and academic needs of each student through a multi-sensory approach to learning. Evergreen Charter School is one that prides itself on differentiating instruction to meet the specific learning styles of each and every one of their students. Evergreen Charter School believes that each student has a different, unique style of learning. It is Evergreen’s goal to identify each student’s learning style so that the curriculum and academic content can be presented in a way that is easily understood by the students. To ensure that this goal is achieved, lessons are presented to meet the visual, auditory and kinesthetic (tactile) learners.

Vision

At Evergreen Charter School, it is our vision that all students are provided with the tools they need to succeed emotionally, socially, physically and academically. We believe that while most schools seek to identify areas of weakness in a student, we aim to identify the areas of strength and teach toward them. For this reason, teachers at Evergreen Charter School are provided with the most relevant professional development on a weekly basis. Professional development provided to the teachers comes from Aussie: Partners in Professional Development. The Aussie consultants coach our teachers weekly in the areas of Literacy and Mathematics. They provide teachers with the tools and resources necessary to provide differentiated instruction to the students as well as observe teachers in the classroom and provide them with constructive feedback. Additionally, the special education teacher works closely with Evergreen’s teachers, modeling teaching strategies and techniques for working with students of varying abilities. She provides teachers with manipulatives to ensure that learning is presented to meet needs of the visual, auditory and tactile learners.

Process

Screening: Child Study meetings are held weekly to discuss the progress of our students. The team is made up of the special education teacher, classroom teacher, school social worker, data and learning specialist as well as both the assistant principal and building principal. Other teachers such as Physical Education, English as a Second Language (ESL,) Reading and Math specialist are invited to attend. It is an opportunity for teachers to discuss student progress and concerns. When a child is brought up to the child study team, we make it our mission to look at the entire student. The team takes a close look at the student’s academic achievement, functional performance as well as their learning characteristics. The students’ social-emotional and physical development are reviewed as well. Collaboratively, the team identifies the strengths and weaknesses of each student and creates a plan of action to best support the students’ learning.

Testing: When a student is referred to the child study team by the classroom teacher and/or learning specialist, the student then undergoes a variety of assessments. Assessments administered include, but are not limited to:

• The Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System (BAS): An assessment which evaluates student reading and comprehension ability with a reliable and universal screening. This system allows us to collect, analyze, record and share data on individual and class progress over time. It is aligned to Leveled Literacy Intervention, and determines each child’s instruction level for guided reading according to the Fountas & Pinnell A-Z Text Level Gradient for guided reading. (Fountas and Pinnell)
• Journeys Diagnostics: Aligned to the New York State Common Core Standards, the Comprehensive Screening Assessment is group-administered assessment that provides initial screening of the previous year’s skills for comprehension, vocabulary, language arts, decoding, and writing. It also includes passages for comprehension screening and an optional group spelling screening. The Diagnostic Assessment is individually administered assessment that provides diagnosis of basic reading skills. It includes passages for reading comprehension check. (Houghton Mifflin)
• Slosson Oral Reading Test (SORT – R3): An assessment used to measure a students’ reading ability. It is comprised of 200 words ranging in degree of difficulty. Words are presented in groups of 20 words beginning from Pre-primer continuing through high school level vocabulary.
• IOWA: The IOWA is a third party state approved assessment aligned to the Common Core. It measures the national percentile in all content areas. The assessment measures our students’ performance and compares it to the national average.
• Data Based Decision Making: Through careful analysis of the students’ results on the IOWA assessment, grade level Journeys Reading assessments, teacher made assessments, and the student’s performance on the tests listed above, at risk students are identified as candidates for intervention.
• Referral Process

Parental Involvement

Evergreen believes that students and their parents must be viewed as active participants in the planning process. It is Evergreen’s responsibility as well as the responsibility of the students’ home district to inform parents of their rights. Therefore, parents must give their consent for formal evaluation by the home school district and should be invited to participate in any conferences held on behalf of their child.

A parent/ guardian and/ or Evergreen Charter School can make a referral to have the student evaluated by the home district; however, parental consent is required. The home district has to acknowledge the evaluation of the request within 90 school days. Batteries of tests and evaluations administered by the home district include:

• Psychological evaluation
• Evaluation by Speech and Language Pathologist
• Evaluation by Occupational Therapist
• Evaluation by Physical Therapist

Once all testing is completed, at no cost to the parent, a meeting is held at the home district. Parents are to be provided with advanced, written notice and are required to attend. Others required in attendance include: Evergreen’s special education teacher, data specialist, the students’ classroom teacher and support service providers directly working with the student and an administrator.

Based on the results of the above mentioned tests and evaluations, as well as detailed documentation of RTI, a student may be eligible for special education services which will be documented in the form of an individualize education plan (IEP). Student who may not qualify for special education services may be entitled to special accommodations documented in the form of a 504 Plan.