67-Rachel Grabowski, Special Education in the Gen ED Classroom

<p>•   I am going into my seventh year teaching, and I started off as an intervention specialist, mild moderate, which means I was in the inclusion setting. So you're an inclusion teacher, going into the Gen ED classes, elaborating with the Gen teacher, so those are the students that are given the opportunity to be with their typical peers in the educational setting. So I did that for five years at the middle school and high school level, battled it, and an opportunity came in front of me to transition into Family and Consumer Sciences, I really wanted to bridge the gap between intervention specialists and Gen ED teachers and still be able to advocate for my students. So I took a leap with the support of my principal, my administrator, he's awesome. So, I jumped into Family and Consumer Sciences. (1:23)</p><p>•   Once you get to that high school level or above at age 14, there is a section, Section Five of the IEP that focuses on transitions and future planning. And what do we do as Family and Consumer Science teachers, right? That's where you're touching on those independent living skills and helping them explore what is life going to be like after college. A lot of the students that we see, especially those ones from the resource room, they're not necessarily going to go to a college or university, they're working with independent skills, they can go and be in the school until they're age 21, until they age out. (4:49)</p><p>•  Special education, so that relationship in that bridge between intervention specialists and Gen ED teachers is so important. Which is, again, one of the reasons why I love Family and Consumer Sciences, so I can be that support to the Special Education teachers in my building, because it's hard. Our intervention specialists have insane case load numbers, work loads that are just completely unrealistic, but they're doing their best and to meet the needs of our students. There's gotta be that collaboration and those communication pieces between us to make sure that we give those students th