IEP Development between Aberdeen, WA and Seattle Children's Hospital
Location: Aberdeen and Seattle, Washington
Description: A.J. West Elementary School in Aberdeen, Washington is 110 miles south of Seattle. Experts who could help with the development of an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for a student at the school were contacted using two-way, interactive videoconferencing. Room-size systems at both locations gave the parents, counselor, special education teacher, and principal an opportunity to connect with specialists at the hospital to help create a unique IEP for the student. As a result, travel expense and time were saved, and the possible stress often associated with an IEP conference was decreased considerably because experts in the field were available.
Commentaries from the practitioners about Student and School Impact, Costs Involved, Benefits, Special Education Impact, Other Projects and Uses, and Need for Videoconferencing.
Bill O'Donnell Principal, A.J. West Elementary School, Gayla Stewart, Elementary Teacher, A.J. West Elementary School and Helen King Special Education Teacher, A.J. West Elementary School.
In the words of the practitioners...
Student and School Impact
Bill O'Donnell, Elementary Principal:
"Videoconferencing has opened up a big window for us. We are out on the
coast of Washington and a hundred and ten miles away from Seattle and
Children's Hospital. We have several students who get services from
Children's Hospital. One of the ways that we have found to bridge that gap
between where we are and Children's Hospital is by videoconferencing. Our
first experience with that was with a student who was a selective mute, and
no-one in our area had ever had experience working with a child who just chose
not to talk. We knew she did talk at home, but she did not talk at school. When
she was in Kindergarten she never said a single word. The only thing that came
out of her mouth... one day she got scared and she went '...ahhh.' And
that was the only vocalization we heard all that year. And so when she was
going into first grade we were wondering how we would know if this child is
learning how to read. We knew she could do math and we were wondering, do we
force her to speak, do we just let her choose to be non-verbal. That put a lot
of pressure on us and on the parents because we didn't know whether we
should just ignore it, whether we should force her to speak, put her in
situations, and our school counselor had never dealt with that and she was
reading books about it.
"Mike Williams, who is our technology coordinator for the district, said this is a great opportunity to try videoconferencing, and he made contacts with the University of Washington and they had a program going, so we had our first teleconference with some professionals at Children's Hospital who had dealt with these students before. For our staff and the parents it was a great relief because they gave us information that made us feel good about what we were doing, and helped us develop an IEP so that we knew what our plan was going to be for the next year. They told us how to relax and how to deal with it and it was a great way for us to make that connection between here and there and between those professionals who knew and had experience with those kind of students and with us that were kind of struggling with it."
Costs Involved
O'Donnell, Elementary Principal: "I suppose the first issue is the cost of videoconferencing. We were fortunate enough to write for and get a grant to set up a videoconferencing facility in our building. However, we needed additional lines that couldn't come in, so it ended up that we had a videoconferencing center at the C.E.L.L. Center (Aberdeen's Community Education and Lifelong Learning facility: http://www.cellcenter.org). Then we got the hardware at A. J. Young Elementary School, which is up the street from us about six blocks. And they have the deaf program there, and they use videoconferencing there so they have the site there. We decided that we probably will not have one in each building as we originally had planned to have. Videoconferencing is expensive, however our original plan will not work until we get better wiring and equipment. We are not going to be able to have a system in each building, and that was a little of a disappointment."
Benefits
O'Donnell, Elementary Principal:
"The benefits are enormous. To be able to connect instantly with other
parts of the world and to make those bridges from here to Seattle, to Florida,
to Spain; wherever we can set those up you know that it opens immense
opportunities for the students, especially where there are some economic
conditions where students don't travel and can't see and talk to those
people first hand...that has been a real benefit."
Special Education Impact
O'Donnell, Elementary Principal:
"The use of videoconferencing for IEP's has really been helpful for
us. We're a small community and we don't have a lot of specialists in a
lot of areas, yet we do have some very special students. We have students that
have multiple handicaps that receive services from doctors and Children's
Hospital in Seattle, and in the past we have had to travel up there, take an
entourage and go up there and meet with them. That would take a whole day for
all of us to go up there and come back. Now, in an hours time we can sit down
and talk with those people face-to-face. They answer our questions. They help
us develop the IEP for those students. The parents are there. If it's
appropriate the student's there and we have been able to develop much more
efficient plans, plans that better address the individual needs of those
students because we are right there together and teleconferencing provides that
opportunity."
Other Projects and Uses
O'Donnell, Elementary Principal:
"As students in social studies class in third grade were studying and
doing a unit on famous Americans, the teacher made a connection with a social
studies teacher, a high school teacher in another district that was doing
American history. The American history students dressed up as characters and
did a videoconference for our third graders. Our third graders had to guess who
those characters were that they had studied about and the other district had
studied about; it went very well.
"I can see us having classes for special kids. We have students that are in what we call the REACH program, which is our accelerated program, kind of a gifted program, and I can see us being able to use teleconferencing to have special events for those kids to meet their special needs. We've used it some for the kids on the lower end and I think maybe next we need to be looking at what we do with those kids that are on the higher end. How do we meet those needs for those kids that are really gifted and need that challenge? Again, we are a small community. We are out on the coast and so we need something that's going to help bridge that gap on both ends, on both the lower end, which we've been successful at, and for those kids on the higher end. How do we meet their needs, too?"
Need for Videoconferencing
O'Donnell, Elementary Principal:
"Well, I think for us the first benchmark was a need. We had the student
who we had had no experience with - the selective mute. And we were just
grasping at what to do. And when we sat down as a group to try and develop an
IEP we were just pooling our ignorance and so this was a chance and we just
jumped at it. Someone said, 'You know, let's try having a
videoconference with Children's Hospital. They have people up there who
have dealt with these students before and they can give us some
information.' To a person we all said 'Yes!'"
Results of the IEP Videoconference
O'Donnell, Elementary Principal:
- "As the principal, after the conference was over, I felt very relieved. I felt, 'OK, I have a plan, and I know that it has been validated by professionals that have dealt with students before.'
- "The special ed. teacher felt the same way, you know, 'OK, here's what we're gonna be able to do. Here's how we can check to see that the student is learning even though they don't talk.'
- "The classroom teacher felt, you know, relieved: 'OK, now I know how to handle her. Now I know what I can and can't do, what I should and shouldn't do.'
- "And the parents felt relief. The parents felt, you know, 'OK my child is different, but there are others who have done the same thing. Here's what will happen to him, here's how they will probably progress through this.'"
Keys to Beginning
O'Donnell, Elementary Principal:
"The first time you just have to kind of jump in and do it. And then once
we did it, we began to see other special problems where we can use
videoconferencing. We started saying, 'Let's set up with Children's
Hospital,' or set up with someone else and solve it that way. It became
much easier. It's kind of like talking on camera. The more you do it the
easier it gets."
The Impact of the Technology in the Classroom
Gayla Stewart, Elementary Teacher: "When you bring technology into your classroom you throw time constraints out the door. You have to be extremely flexible to be able to do the projects. One project may take a week. It may take a month. So with the videoconferencing it's not that different. It depends on how you get your preparation done. We're fortunate; we go to a site that's about ten minutes away to do our videoconferencing. We haven't ever had a trouble hooking up with anyone or gotten a bad connection. We haven't had that happen. "And the kids are more focussed when they know they have a project that they have to get done to meet their deadline to conference, cause we don't just videoconference to say , 'Hey, how ya doin'. We have projects that we finish up so that they can demonstrate to the other students what they've done."
Working with the Technology...the Kids
Stewart, Elementary Teacher:
"Be prepared to meet the unexpected. You never can plan what's going
to happen perfectly. You just need to make sure you're flexible. Let the
kids do most of it. I step back and the kids do most of it. I give them
parameters and they fill it in.
"Be patient...the kids will carry it on to a higher level than you can even imagine. They are the ones who are basically in charge of it and if you give them the chance they're going exceed your expectations."
Videoconferencing...Benefits
Stewart, Elementary Teacher:
"Videoconferencing opens doors to students that they can never find in
their regular classroom. It is another step, an extended step with technology.
It brings them closer to the real world, what's really happening instead of
being enclosed in their own little school. It opens the doors. It bridges the
gaps to all these incredible opportunities that they won't normally have.
In the future I'm going to be moving down grades and so I can't wait to
do this with the younger students. I think it's something that's going
to be commonplace in every classroom within the next five years maximum. Kids
need to know that they are not the only people here. It brings a more global
outlook on their life. It's exciting, and it brings a lot of
opportunities."
Videoconferencing...A Need
Helen King, Elementary Special Education Teacher:
"From the professional aspect, it was during my first school year here
when I first did some videoconferencing. It was through the health department
for a student to focus on some behavioral and medical needs. The student was on
a lot of medication to help reduce some of the behaviors that she was
exhibiting."
"I was kind of confused about the whole thing, but it was really a neat process because we got to converse with Children's Hospital in Seattle. The parent was there and the student was there. We were all able to work together as a team with the doctor to help figure out what we should do. We did some planning for behaviors and needs and getting some consistency with medication and things that were also happening at home. So that was very helpful. Videoconferencing was kind of confusing. It was my first time I had done it, but since then I have done a few others as well."
More Needs and Ways
King, Elementary Special Education Teacher:
"There are two ways that I have accessed videoconferencing through special
education:
- One has been through a referral to Children's Hospital. We meet as a team, the school psychologist, maybe the special education specialist, and the teachers. We all decide that maybe videoconferencing is something that would be useful in answering some of our questions and setting up an educational program.
- Another way has been for one particular student, who still goes to this school, to learn about his technology, his talking device. He is a student that's nonverbal, doesn't speak, and he's basically been getting by with some sign language and some message writing to communicate with others and it wasn't very effective and there were some behavior concerns that were also happening. I noticed that his previous teachers had set up some interactions with Children's Hospital. They wrote up a report and eventually he was able to receive a talking device. But what happened was they wanted us all, the whole team, speech teacher, at least one of the assistants that worked with him, his classroom teacher, the principal, the parent, the child, and the special education teacher to all go to Seattle. And that was asking kind of a lot, unfortunately. I mean I don't like saying that because we do want to do what's best for our students but that meant a lot of expense, a lot of planning on getting everybody together, and travel time, you know, subs, all that kind of stuff, and so it was so much easier to go just a couple miles down the road to a center where we have some videoconferencing equipment that we can access and just take care of it there. We were able to do the training and we met as a team and we could all interact. It was nice not to just be sent a summary or a medical report and just have to read it and go from there and guess and, you know, plod your way through it."
Videoconferencing for the Future
King, Elementary Special Education Teacher:
"I would hope that videoconferencing is something that all teachers and
educators are able to access. It's nice to be able to meet as a team to
involve the parent and involve, a lot of times the student as well. He or she
may not be present during the entire conferencing but through a great part of
it. That way everybody is able to give input and everybody hears the same
thing. We are all able to focus on the same goals. And it's also nice to be
able to interact with that person, spend a little bit of extra time because,
rather than having to read a medical report and just kinda guess your way
through everything, you're at least able to interact and ask questions and
really get somewhere on the educational planning for that student."
More Information...Contact
Mike Williams, Technology Coordinator
Aberdeen Schools
216 North G Street
Aberdeen, WA 98520
360-538-2036
mwilliams@asd5.org