Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Educational Update: Gurdon makes plans

With the constantly changing school laws, special education and what it has to offer, also is evolving.

Gurdon School District LEA Supervisor Carolyn McClure has provided some current statistics and changes concerning special education for the 2005-2006 school year.

She said Gurdon School System as a whole is currently providing resource services for 135 students. McClure said there are 52 students at Gurdon Primary School, with Laura Brown and Vickie Lynn teaching special education and Amber Buck and Linda Dickerson assisting as paraprofessionals in the classroom.

There are 36 students receiving resource services at Cabe Middle School, with Floreda Briscoe co-teaching resource and McClure working as special education teacher in the classroom for a half day and LEA supervisor for a half day. Donna Giles and Barbara Dickens assist as paraprofessionals in the classroom.

There are 47 students receiving resource services at Gurdon High School with Edna Cooper and Wilma House teaching Special Education and Charlotte McMasters assisting as paraprofessional in the classroom. Cynthia Anderson is the secretary for special education for a half day. She spends the remainder of the day "teaching reading classes for Mrs. White, and co-teaching with Mrs. Clark," McClure said. Anderson also assists with testing preparation for re-evaluations at all three schools.

McClure said the school district found out last year that special education students were spending too much time in the resource room and not enough time in the regular classroom.

According to state department guidelines, the goal is to keep 80 percent of special education students in the regular classroom 80 percent of the day."

McClure said Gurdon also fell short on graduation rate, where too many special education students were not graduating. Many programs to help solve this were implemented, such as co-teaching, with training from Rose Merry Kirkpatrick.

In this program, the special education teacher or aid goes in the regular classroom. Although they may not teach the lesson, they assist the teacher in making modifications and instruction for all students, not only resource students.

The implementation of co-teaching had great results in the classrooms of Cena Clark and Cindy Escalante. They said they were very excited when they received test scores on these students at the beginning of the school year.

Another change requires that students be responsible for making decisions that will affect his or her future during an annual review conference where plans are made for the upcoming school year with training from Bonnie Boaz.

McClure said, "We also received training with Tommy Broyles for our entire faculty-with a focus on implementing modifications in the regular classroom. A failure review plan was also implemented."

In this situation, a committee is charged with the duty of tracking students who may be at risk for failing. The committee, which includes the student, develops a plan for raising the failing grade with the regular education teacher. In addition, the special education teacher will follow up and collaborate with the student to ensure academic success.

The one real issue facing the Gurdon School District with regard to special education students seems to be ensuring that students of various ethnicity receive the same educational treatment, opportunities and successes in special education as those in the entire district. Plans to ensure that this improves includes paraprofessionals at the elementary level, training and planning.

With these interventions, Gurdon staff expects to see the disproportionate trigger corrected soon.

"With these interventions," McClure said, "We expect to see our disproportionate trigger corrected soon. The special education department in the Gurdon School District is working very hard to follow mandated guidelines. Our focus is on putting the student first for academic success. We are excited about the changes and improvements we are seeing across the district."