Teacher+A+Interview

**Interview with Teacher A - SPED Teacher at AHS**

at AHS? || The goal is to structure instruction and support for the needs of all students and reteach skills that still need to be learned and to not waste time on skills that are already known. || **What I gained from my interview with Teacher A:**  After talking to teacher A I felt that I had a better understanding of the special education department at AHS. It seems that data is used effectively within the department. The teacher did suggest that there needs to be more supports in place for students at the high and low end of the spectrum at AHS.
 * **Question** || **Teacher A - Answers** ||
 * Do you monitor growth for each student? If yes, how so? || Yes, informal assessments and activities. Pre-assessment, teach a skill and practice a school then we generalize the skills out in the community and reassess where we are at. ||
 * What is the idea for the use of data
 * Do you discuss certain data within a group of teachers/coaches? What do you discuss? || Yes, as a staff and departments. We discuss CSAP, Acuity and grades. ||
 * Do you collect data? What types? || I collect data on students for IEP goals and I collect much formative data on my current students in their classes. I also collect data for CSAP-A test on all of my students. ||
 * How do you know which student needs the most help? Is it based on data? || We discuss students as departments and as schools. We can tell that students need more help based on observations and formative assessment. Especially in working with students classified as SLIC I typically focus more on classroom and situational observations (less formal data collection) to determine how much help students need. ||
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Do students know anything about this data? || <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Students generally know about the data and it is discussed in class. With re-evaluations for IEP’s students are made aware of data that goes into creating an IEP. ||
 * Describe the supports in place to encourage individual students in academia at both at the personal, school-wide, and district level. || I think there are minimal supports in place for students at both ends of the spectrum, high and low students. I don’t think all these supports are appropriate or adequate. Unfortunately, budget cuts is often a reason for these lack of resources for students. ||
 * What do you think students need the most help with? || Need to learn what it takes to be employable and have a dose of reality. They need to know the skills to function as adults, real life skills. ||
 * What is the best plan of action to enable students to experience success? || First is to treat them as individuals and to honor and respect each student as an individual. It is also important to have realistic and high expectations for all students. As a teacher, it is important to tell students what those expectations are and to let them know that you are there to help them reach that potential. ||
 * What about parents? || Open communication and relationship built on mutual respect. ||