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Mike goes to Washington

So are our class prepares for our of so exciting trip to Washington, D.C. Mike has become VERY excited about the trip and very interested in what we are going to see when we go. He has checked out a book on Washington from the library and every time he turns to a new page he looks for either myself or the other teacher to show and ask if we are going to get to see this in Washington which means that he has been doing really well in social studies and he has been "reading" during reading time (he is reading the captions in the book but mostly just looking at the pictures... not the most stimulating reading but he is looking at a book and reading short captions). However, when it comes to his focus in math and writing - he is still struggling. The strategies that we are using (him getting up and the timer) are working pretty well but it's gotten to the point to where it is less self motivated and more teacher motiviated. When we see him getting frustrated and zoning out we implement the strategies where as a few weeks ago it was Mike that was doing it which makes me think that we need to find a newer strategy for him because he has become accustomed and familiar with the strategies that are being used now.

Mike's social behavior seems to be improving in the sense that there are fewer outbursts because he has a way to express his issues with other students all the time (the journal) and he is still talking to his friends about animated tv shows/books but other students still need to approach him - he rarely approaches them to talk to them on his own. He has become less withdrawn but he still has a ways to go to really come out of his shell and I fear that he will just be getting out of his shell at the end of the year and then go right back to the way that he was at the beginning of the year when he reaches middle school - hopefully that won't happen though!

Effective Classroom Management

I read the article titled "Effective Classroom Management: Teacher Preparation and Professional Development." This semester I have really focused on classroom management and the importance of it. At the beginning of the semester, I had a difficult time getting the class to listen to me and a difficult time getting lessons completed because the students would not listen to me. This created a problem for myself since I couldn't teach the lessons, the students that wanted to listen because they became frustrated during the lesson with the other students that were not listening, and for the students that were not listening because they were not getting what they needed to out of the lesson. My teacher gave me a few articles about classroom management and I have really benefited from the suggestions that I have read over the past few months.

I really liked the section about class management preparation - especially when it talked about new teachers. It is so true that newer teachers have a much more difficult time when it comes to classroom management. The article talks about how as a younger and less experienced teacher, the first response to a student that is disruptive in the classroom is to send them out - however, the students that are most likely disrupting the classroom are the students that really need to be in the classroom for instruction. Teachers that have been prepared for these types of behaviors and have the training and instruction on how to handle these situations will have a better way of handling the conflict and both the students and the teachers will benefit from this.

It has been very difficult learning how to manage my classroom and I feel that I have recently grasped it in my classroom - however, that took about 1 or 2 months to do so. In my own classroom, that's just too much time to spend getting the class under control and too much instructional time wasted. I would really like to do more research about various management strategies so that I can be prepared for my own classroom next year!

One step forward... two steps back...

Mike had really started to make progress academically and then we started a new unit and it was right back to how he was before. His social skills have also seemed to be going downhill as well. He has REALLY been zoning out these days – completely detached from any academic instruction and kind of standing back at recess. He still talks to the other students in the class but he will randomly start talking about another subject that the students were not talking about. When asked a question, he answers the question as though he knows the answer even though he is no where even close to the right answer. Usually his answer is on the same topic but it might be about something completely different from what we are talking about at that exact moment. The strategies that we have been using are still working somewhat but his inability to retain any information that was previously learned is becoming more of a problem.

We have been timing him in class and like I said earlier… sometimes he can accomplish the task and he is very happy and so are we but there are times that he cannot complete the task in the allotted time and he becomes very frustrated and defeated. The instances where he is completing the task in the allotted time have decreased and his frustration level has gone up a lot. He has also been lashing out against students recently. If someone says something to him that he does not like, his reactions escalate at an unnecessary rate and can sometimes end up yelling.

I really think that his behavior issues are the cause of his academic issues and something seems to be going on recently that has really changed his emotional state. His parents insist that nothing at home has changed and he rarely talks about his feelings. However, even when you can get him to talk about his feelings, he talks about a lot of nonsense and he rambles on. We are currently trying to get him to see the guidance counselor about his emotional issues and he has been recently tested for SST to qualify him for a learning disability so I guess we’ll see what that turns up but any ideas about what might be contributing to his recent behavior??

March Reading

While reading this article, it got me thinking about some of the students in my class. I tried to think of a student in my current class that would remind me – even just in the slightest – of anyone in my class and surprisingly… it didn’t. The students in my class do not have many behavioral or learning difficulties. There are four that I can think of out of my class of 27 that have severe learning disabilities that would require outside help or a lot of teacher attention. Only one of those has severe behavioral issues, the others truly try in class and their behavior is easily corrected with a teacher giving instructions to them.

I almost feel at a disadvantage that my class is so “good” and well behaved. Anna, I know your class is a bit… well… troubled… and I think I might go crazy with that class but at the same time, you have these amazing experiences where you get to see these behavior problems that you’re going to see later on in your teaching career and you have this experienced teacher that you get to observe handle these situations in the classroom. I think you’re going to be really prepared in the future for these students that you’re going to see. In my future, every student that does not want to read or complete their work, asking them to sit down and get focused is NOT always going to work.

This reading has a lot of great strategies and examples for teachers to read about. And reading about them is great, but I think I could get more out of them by having examples of them in my classroom and being able to apply these strategies from the readings in the classroom. However, I also don’t know how I would handle your class Anna where you see these students… and can apply these strategies… ugh.

Lets focus on Mike

So my case study student, let’s call him Mike, is a pretty interesting. He is not only struggling in academics but his behavior in class is odd. Mike will sit in class with this blank look on his face… like there’s no one home and then when you ask him to repeat directions, surprisingly, he can’t do it. In addition, Mike has this tick. You know when you’re hand is in your face and you shake your head to the side to get it out of your face?? That’s what he will do repetitively… however, he doesn’t seem to notice the tick and we’re not entirely sure what sets the tick off. Sometimes he’ll just be sitting in class and working on math problems or reading a book, sometimes he’ll be talking to the teacher and sometimes he’ll just be talking to friends. In addition to the tick, when he is writing (ignoring how bad his handwriting is) he’ll go over some random letters – almost like he is trying to put them in bold print – and they’re all over his paper. Any thoughts on what might be going on there??

We’ve tried a number of strategies with Mike so far, we’ve tried timing tasks for him to keep him focused on his work which works sometimes – he’ll get his work done and we’re all satisfied – however, when he cannot complete the task in the allotted time, he becomes incredibly frustrated and while he does not shut down and he does eventually move one, he seems very defeated in that moment. WE have also set up for him to receive tutoring at a local church which has done wonders for his homework! Not only is all of his homework completed on time, but he can explain what he did to get his answers and seems to understand that concept. However, while it is good that he can do his homework, he still does not participate in class and does not complete his class work and often misses out on new concepts that are being introduced. We have also begun sending him to the homework help in the morning, giving him check lists to complete tasks in addition to giving him one on one attention. He responds to these interventions at the time that they are given but he quickly forgets what was talked about during those times, the concepts that were gone over, and the sometimes even what we did during those times at all. He goes right back to zoning out and staring blankly off into space. Again… any thoughts on what to do to try and get Mike to focus and possibly even retain information??

Chapter 7 response

This semester, I’ve been going with my cooperating teacher to her meetings with the SST committee. Not entirely sure what SST stands for but its where teachers present their students that they see as needing testing and extra help. The teacher identifies the students with problem areas and bring them to the meeting. The members of the committee come up with strategies to use with the student to try and resolve the issues and if those behaviors do not work, then the student is referred for testing to identify some other problem. They’re not only behavioral issues but also academic issues. The reading that we did for this month really made me think about this SST referral process and the behavior system in the school.

You definitely see that the school wide behavior system is being enforced in the classrooms and it is a very uniform system. While in the meetings, the members are constantly asking, what level do they behave on most of the time, are there any special behavior contracts that you are using and so on and I think that it is really great that they can have that conversation and EVERYONE in the room knows what a student that acts on a level B 50% of the time means. This is one of the reasons that I like our schools discipline system.

I feel like with each reading we are doing all we talk about is this discipline without stress book and since all three of us are in the school, I feel like we might all have the same ideas… SOOO – here’s a question for you guys about the reading/school discipline strategies: do you think it is effective?

I think that the students tend to get bored with the reflections and simply fill them out to fill them out. The students that are going to end up writing them are more than likely going to write more than one and I think that they eventually get to the point of “ok here’s another one, let me write down what they want me to say.” Does this really set up a system that benefits the students and a system that they can learn from?? I don’t know… I think you make arguments for it being beneficial and not beneficial so what do you guys think?

Discipline without stress, punishment, but maybe rewards??

Our school uses the discipline without stress punishment or rewards system and so these principles are brought into the classroom. If a child is not behaving properly, they are asked to “check their level” to ensure that they are constantly thinking about what level of behavior they are acting on. If the inappropriate behavior continues, the students are asked to fill out a reflection which requires them to think about what they have done and how they will prevent themselves from acting out in the future. In my classroom, about half a dozen students have been asked to fill out reflections, many of them multiple times. My cooperating teacher does not hesitate to hand out reflection forms; however, the students almost always get a warning, sometimes two depending on the situation.

All of our teachers are currently following the behavior contracts that the students and their parents signed for the field trip and I don’t know about you’re classrooms, but in mine, these kids are terrified that they will not be able to go on the trip!! We have two students that already have two reflections and its only January! They have another 3 months to go and at this rate, they won’t be coming with us  My teacher seems to have pretty good control over the classroom and the students know what is expected of them – whether that’s from the school wide discipline program or if it’s my teachers doing or possibly a combination of the two but they really seem to get it! Rarely is my class every behaving so poorly that the lessons are unsuccessful which I think is great! However, I kinda feel that these five strikes and you’re not going on the trip thing is somewhat of a reward? They are rewarding the students with good behavior at the end of the semester – they get to go on the field trip if they don’t get five reflections… I don’t know, it just kind of seems like somewhat of a reward and kind of against the whole discipline without stress punishment or rewards – what do you guys think??

I feel that all three of us have such different classroom environments that each of our teachers has to approach discipline in different ways – maybe we could rotate between the classrooms because I really would like to see each of your rooms!! I’ve never dealt with lower grades much less a combination class and I have never seen a classroom with ANY EC students in it (weird yeah??) Anyways… just a thought!

Classroom Management

While I was reading this article - I was trying to think of a child that I have encountered that could be classified as an “EC” student and I couldn’t think of one until I thought back to when I was in elementary school and in kindergarten. I know… remembering someone from kindergarten?? I can remember ONE of my good friends from kindergarten that I did everything with… and this one kid Jason. He had some behavioral issues – I just remember him being loud and he wouldn’t like to work with other students at the centers (like the sand and macaroni table). Because it was so long ago – I can’t really remember whether or not Jason would have been considered “EC” or not. Other then Jason, I don’t think I was ever in classes either as a student or a teacher that would have been an inclusive classroom. Inclusion is really important not only to the development of the individual student but also to the development of the student’s classmates. I really liked the section about promoting membership in the classroom. I think that’s really important to ALL students – every child wants to feel like they belong in their classroom and in society in general. A lot of students tend to shut down when they do not feel like they have been accepted into their classroom by their classmates and their teachers. My cooperating teacher talks about her student’s safety as being her number one priority which creates a very safe environment for the students both physically and emotionally. Students with disabilities feel different already, when they are in a classroom with students that they see as “normal,” then they REALLY feel different and if the teachers and the students in the classroom don’t work hard to create a classroom that promotes membership (like the one talked about in the article) the students won’t feel as though they belong and feel even more different then they already feel and they are liable to shut down even more and fall even further behind.

Parachutes take 2

The second time that we did the parachutes was great. I’m not sure if it was because the students were older or if it was because we had done the experiment once before and we understood it better and knew what to look for or a combination of both but I not only thought the experiment went much smoother but I also enjoyed teaching it a lot more. The kids were priceless! They had some really great answers to our questions and were very creative in trying to come up with reasons for why parachutes worked and what changing the weight would do and so on. One thing that I really noticed was that they loved it when I wrote names on the clothes pins that were going to represent people using the parachutes. At one point on little girl asked me to write her name on hers and for us both to use the parachute (her clothes pin and mine) and see what happened then. This only reinforces the importance of making personal connections for the students and their lives.

One thing that one group did the first time around that we did not do because we were not sure if we would have internet access was to show a video clip of a parachute deploying and have the students talk about what they saw when it went up. What happened to the persons movement when the parachute opened? What would happen if it had not opened? Having the students watch video clips allows them to see what should actually happen in the experiment occasionally and the videos might trigger some prior knowledge that they have and can contribute to the conversation throughout the lesson.

Flint chapter 12

“Working with struggling readers and writers” defines what I’m doing with my case study student so I was already interested in what this chapter was talking about. The first few sections are about the teacher’s beliefs and attitudes and motivation and engagement. I think that how a teacher feels about learning and a student can REALLY shape how the student feels towards learning and how motivated they are. I remember when I was in elementary school, I swear my third grade teacher hated me and I will swear to it until the day I die. She had one favorite student in the class and the rest of us were constantly compared to him and well… I didn’t compare really well to him and she was out to get me – no lie. She would constantly call me out for not being “on task” even though I was (of course there were a few of those that were warranted but that’s beside the point) and I dreaded going to school! What made it even worse was that I was pulled out for AIG in math and I’m pretty sure that they both hated me as well… sad  Other information was great for just creating a good classroom environment that the teacher and the students both benefit from and I really like that and it will be very useful in my classroom!

Flint Chapter 8

One thing that I really liked about this chapter were the independent and productive reading and writing tables on pages 220-221. They give examples of the standards that the students would be practicing and how teachers can help them master these standards in addition to things that teachers can use in their classrooms to promote those learning experiences. Word study is a big part of the fifth grade curriculum and they have extensive worksheets that have students looking up various word parts and this and that… stuff that these students don’t care much about and it means nothing to them. I would love to have really great word study program because I think that it’s really important for them to have that knowledge but I think they need to obtain it in a way that is relatable to them and is something they can actually complete because a lot of the students end up not even finishing the worksheets for each word and turning them in incomplete. The roots and branches activity is really great for the very visual learners and would be a fun break for them from what they’re used to. Homographs are another great thing for my case study to work on and other students in the class. The most common ones that I see when writing back to the students in their reading journals are the to/too/two and the there/their/they’re and it drives me up the wall!! There are so many incorrectly spelled words that are incorrect simply because they chose the wrong word spelling! The right word… just the wrong right word… weird right? Anyways… even creating a word wall with these on there so that the students can see them every day and refer to them when writing would be great! However, if there is limited classroom space then I can see how the dictionary would be the more practical way to go but I think the students (and the teacher’s sanity) would benefit from these!

Flint Chapter 11

Developing an inquiry based lesson was going to be a struggle for me when developing our literacy units. I completely understood how to build a science and a math inquiry based unit but how in the world was I going to do that in language arts? When I was in school, it was simple you do these readings from these books and answer the questions from the book and now we’re going to go over them, now read for 30 minutes on your own at home, and maybe we’ll read a book as a class right after recess for a bit before we start our lesson and then writing was just writing various stories. In my classroom now, the students do guided reading and independent reading and then they write on their own with writing conferences thrown in there. There were no integrations of technology when I was in school and there are not really in the classroom I’m in right now when it comes to literacy. There are various ways for students to illustrate their work, explore different aspects of work, and present work that should be used.

I know I’ve already talked about these but books on tape are AMAZING for students that are struggling readers and even those leap frog games. I’m in upper grades so I’m really hoping that is why I do not see these technologies being used and that they are actually being used in the rest of the school because I think they are just great for students! Younger students would LOVE playing with these things and they would be learning at the same time. I used to see the commercials saying that students would actually be learning while playing the game and I would laugh because it’s a game. Games are something you have fun doing like playing Mario brothers or something like that, there’s no learning going on right? Wrong, they’re great and kids love them and will love them!! Ok now I’m finished selling products…

Collins chapter 6/7

First of all… those pictures in the book by the students – adorable. Ok, these chapters were really great for me to read while working with my case study student. She is in fifth grade; however, she can be considered an emergent reader and writer. Her IEP indicates a speech problem which has caused a delay in her phonemic awareness and development. She particularly struggles with vowel sounds, which are pretty tricky if I do say so myself. However, this chapter gave great insight into how she is thinking and different ways that I can help her. One thing that was mentioned in the book was a technology aspect that made me think about books on tape for her. She struggles with reading because she gets caught up on words that she does not immediately recognize, can not pronounce correctly to give her something that sounds like a word she has heard before, and then she looses the impact of the story. Books on tape would be a great way for her to not only work on comprehending the story, but she can also see how words that she struggles with are actually pronounced.

I also LOVED the invitation for the classroom parts from these chapters. The one about flipbooks are really great for my case study student. During her reading intervention time, she is working on different word families and creating words from them. With these flip books, she could practice them and then having something fun to show for it. The sequencing questions and how do you know invitation for the classroom sections are great as well to work on her comprehension of stories. However, her main area of focus is comprehension while she is reading something so the activities would need to be individual and not whole group or they would need to be modified for that reason.

Flint 9/Collins 3

These chapters on assessment was incredibly helpful and informative for the work that we do with our students and for the kid watching project that we are completing. When I was in elementary school, I was fortunate enough to not struggle with standardized tests, and I never understood why my teachers disliked them so much. I’m doing well on them, what is the problem? However, now as a teacher and as an adult, I can see the huge down side to these tests. Teachers begin “teaching to the test” and the students loose out on various educational experiences as a result of it. I remember one day in class, we spent the entire class period just practicing filling in the bubbles for the end of grade test. I thought it was fun to fill in different patterns on the sheet but now I see that I lost out on some very valuable educational time.

There are several alternative assessments that are mentioned in the book that I think would be much more informative then a standardized test would be since you can see how the students are thinking about a certain piece of work or concept. Observation alone is a great tool that I think a lot of teachers over look. There are a lot of students in a classroom and there are generally a lot of things that are going on in the room and different things that the teacher wants to be doing but by taking the time to just watch students as they interact in groups with the material or seeing who is talking themselves through the material is fascinating and very beneficial. One problem that I see with miscue analysis and retrospective miscue analysis is that some students might simply answer the question the way that they think the teacher wants them to answer the question. If the teacher asks them why they skipped over a word, they might respond that they just didn’t see the word and they might not have seen the word, or they might have skipped it because they did not know how to pronounce it and they did not want the teacher to see that they could not read the word. Teachers will run into this in several different assessments but they should be able to tell which instance it is with the individual child. I really like these alternate assessments, but it would take a very meticulous and willing teacher to complete these and be able to accurately gage a student’s progress in order to ever replace standardized tests with something of this nature.

Differentiated Instruction

My classroom has a majority of academically gifted students in it and they are usually pulled out to go down to the AIG room and the remaining students work with the teacher in the classroom for the block. I had to go to the EC specialist at a school I volunteered at recently to find different resources because I don’t see any differentiation in my actual classroom. One great website that she suggested was the CAST book builder site that we used in our science methods class. She had compiled a folder with tons of books that she had been showed and created herself about many different topics and in every different grade level. These books are amazing – they help those that are reading below grade level by reading the book out loud to the students all while forcing the students that are on grade level to think more about the material with the questions that the animated characters pop up and ask and then those that are above grade level have challenging questions that they are asked to think about.

One book that she showed me in particular was great. When we created our books, we were told that we need three different characters that help students read the material, ask questions about the text, and that provides other science facts. For this book, there were three different characters as well, however, each character went along with a different reading group. The students sat in their reading groups while the book was being read and Pedro (the penguin) went along with the lower level reading groups, Monty went along with at level readers, and then Hali went with the above grade level readers. At the end of each page, each character would ask a question about that page in particular and each group would answer their characters question as a group and then share their answers with the class. This way the students do not know that they are answering questions at a different level – they just think that there are three different questions about the text and each group is answering one. The specialist suggested that in order for the groups to really think that they are just answering questions, you could have levels and the characters rotate so that the lower levels are not always answering questions from Pedro and so on.

Seasons - SAM video

With this video on seasons - the bird could be going on an adventure through the four seasons and talking about each season or you could simply list facts about each season as the bird travels through and you might want to slow the birds movement down as well.

Chapter 5 - Literacy

This weeks reading on writers workshop was EXTREMELY helpful for me in my placement. The students have about 45 minutes work of writing and about 45 minutes of reading during our literacy block. This is basically 45 minutes of reading and writing workshops and I have been very lost as to what I needed to be doing during the writing workshop. With the reading workshop, I have just been watching my teacher during her reading groups and then reading with a few of the students that are not doing their reading group. When it came to the writing portion though, I was not sure how to answer questions that the students were asking and how much grammar I should be correcting or how much content I should be addressing and where the story became mine instead of the students because of all of the “corrections” I was making for the students. This chapter really answered a lot of questions that I had and now, hopefully, I can become more comfortable during writing workshop and not just walking around watching the students write their stories.

There was also a section on sharing the student’s work which I LOVE! There is one girl in particular in my class that has some behavioral problems and it has become increasingly more difficult to deal with her during writing and reading workshop because she becomes very bored with what is going on and she acts out, disrupting the students around her. However, she has this amazing story that if she could put more detail in, it would easily be one of the most interesting and well written stories in the class. The big problem with her is that she thinks she is dumb. She regularly says “I don’t know, I’m dumb” and then laughs about it and goes back to her disruptive ways. Her classroom teacher had not had a chance to read her story and after school was out, I told her about the story and we both read over it from her writing journal. The next day, she was asked to read her story out loud to the classroom during sharing time. After each student shares their story, the class is to offer three good comments and three good critiques on how to make the story better for the student. I was told that after she shared her story, she got glowing comments about the story from her classmates and by the next time I was in the classroom, she had published her first story and was eagerly working on her second story. She REALLY wanted to share the story both with me and then again with her classmates. I really think that allowing the students a chance to share their work is a great way to encourage the students in addition to having the students help one another with their writing.

Parachutes at Hawriver

The second trip to Hawriver was much better then the first trip. I don’t know if it is because the students were older or if it was because of the different experiment that we were completing with the students but they seemed to grasp the concepts that we were trying to get across and they seemed much more intrigued by the lesson. The first time that we went, our students knew what a bubble was and how you made one, but they had never read or been introduced to a book about bubbles. When we began our lesson, we asked the students if they knew what a parachute was and they did not recognize the word right away. As we began describing what a parachute was, one of the students went “oh yeah we have a book on those!” and pointed to a book at the front of the room. Once they could make that connection, the lesson went much smoother and they were able to connect what we were telling them to something that they had been introduced to before hand.

Our students LOVED building their own parachutes and they definitely loved being able to stand on a chair and drop the parachute. The fact that they were making their own experiment pieces really got them more involved in the lesson. With the bubbles activity, everything was already made for the students and they were just participating in the step by step instructions of an experiment. With the parachutes, the students were able to tell us what they thought would work best and which ones would fall faster and slower and then they got to test their own ideas and to them, they were creating the lesson that they were participating in.

When it came to recording the data, we wanted to use an average of the three trials that were completed for each parachute. Here, we ran into a problem that we ran into with the bubbles experiment. We did not know these students and we did not know the different levels that they were on or what the students have been introduced to and what they had not been introduced to. The concept of an average was something that we thought third graders would have been introduced to but they had not heard that term in an academic setting. We then had to take some time to explain what an average was and in the end, we decided that it was too confusing for the students to use the average. We did not want the lesson to become about averages instead of parachutes. Another problem that we ran into was the concept of decimals/fractions. When we said that the parachute took 1 ½ seconds to fall, we asked them how to write that in decimal form and they did not know that ½ was equivalent to 0.5. They also could not determine which was more – ½ or ¼ and then they also struggled with whether 0.5 or 0.25 was more or less so we had to help them out with that.

Even though there were a few areas that needed to be worked on (averages and recording the data) I really think that the students understood our lesson and took away the concepts and the right meanings from the lesson that we were trying to get them to take away from it!!

Special Services Interview

The EC specialist at my school is amazing. She had all the time in the world to talk to us about the EC program at the school and answer any questions that we had. I guess that patience and kindness are two important qualities that an EC specialist should have. She began to explain the process and I was surprised at how simple she made the process sound but then talked about how long it took to get an IEP put into place. The first step was having a teacher recommend a child for special services. The teacher brings their concern to an SST committee. I’m fortunate enough to be working with a teacher that is on the SST committee and I have seen what questions are brought up in the meetings. Many of the teachers that are working to develop a students IEP have worked with the child or at least know the child and their behaviors – one of the benefits of working in a smaller school.

I guess I knew that parents have the final say in all of their child’s schooling but the EC specialist just kept saying “it’s all up to the parent.” Any time there is a change in the students IEP, the parents must be present at all meetings and must sign all paper work. They may also refuse the specialists referral into the EC program and they can withdraw their student from the program at any time. Why would a parent take their child out of a program that is has been designed specifically for their individual student. However, it happens more frequently then you would think according to the specialist.

I feel that as a future teacher the fact that I did not realize this is kind of bad but I did not know that an IEP was a legally binding document. I knew that teachers would get into trouble for not following the IEP but I did not know that legal action could be taken against the county if the IEP is not followed. Not following the IEP can get teachers into a lot of trouble, but what happens to those that work in schools that do not have the resources to meet the IEP. It’s not the teachers fault that the school can not hire enough specialists or order all of the materials necessary but they in the end, take the ultimate blame for the child not succeeding and the IEP not being followed. Not fair. I really look forward to being part of the SST committee and seeing the process first hand!