Serving those with greatest need…
In my former roles as Chief Academic Officer and state assessment director, I spent a lot of time with data. Even now on most conversations I join, people ask me what are some of the biggest challenges I foresee with serving students. Based on my observations, it is three things: 1) the gap is widening for those who are typically most underserved in the general education classroom, 2) special education students do not have access to the same expectations and materials as their general education peers, 3) English learner students with long-term challenges of success (i.e., secondary) slip though the cracks of the secondary school system.
Educators have a significant challenge in meeting the needs of a more diverse classroom in terms of student understanding. As a result of the pandemic, there is a growing chasm of understanding of foundational content. For students that were in elementary school, they are now in the secondary space where direct, 1:1 support is typically more limited based on the secondary structures of education. The time spent with an educator aligns to a designated period and then they move on to the next class. While we originally focused on acceleration, we need to provide opportunities to reteach core content and give educators tools that allow this to occur.
Special education students are often receiving support in services that does not directly align to the core content they receive in the general education space. As an example, I have observed curriculum adoption cycles where special education staff procure their own independent resources separate from the general education classes. In these instances, students receive core instruction in one methodology and potentially the support in a completely different methodology.
English learners who enter the elementary school often achieve fluency within the time there. However, there are some students that enter later or do not attain fluency in the elementary school. These students then transition into a secondary learning space with more limited supports. Schools must consider systems that allow success for all students and flexibility to receive the types of support most needed.
Every school and corporation’s data is unique so these observations may not apply to your setting. However, I would push you to look beyond the obvious. What needs do the students that are not successful have? We should not gloss over who is meeting the benchmark, but we need to have concerted conversations about who is not. Then, we need strategies to support them.