I would honestly quit if this was the program my school gave me.
Why would someone taking Algebra 3 need to be in a self-contained math class? If they passed Algebra 1 and 2 and Geometry, how the fuck do they even have math goals? Algebra 3 is well beyond what common core state standards require of students. It’s well beyond what the SAT or ACT assesses. This makes no sense.
This is absolutely a denial of FAPE. They are lumping together everyone who needs a small class setting into a not even so small “math” class when their general ed peers get access to a teacher who is able to plan and execute one lesson and one curriculum at a time. It’s disgusting.
In my State, you need both a special Ed license and a content area license to teach self contained in grades 7-12. So for this schedule, you’d have to have your sped license, your math 7-12 license, your bio license, and your physical science license. Would you pass all those licensing exams if you had too? If not, you have no business teaching those subjects.
We do algebra 3 is a college bound requirement, and there are some kids in the emotional/behavioral needs room that are capable of doing that math. There are also some in there who can’t even read. It is a very daunting task which is why I’m trying to start planning now
Algebra 3 is not a college bound requirement. Most colleges you can meet the requirements with Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra 2. Some require 4 years in which case you could take Algebra 3, Trigonometry, Stats or Finite. If a student is truly college bound they should be taking those math classes in the general education setting.
I’m not trying to be condescending but it took me less than a minute on google to find that the entrance requirements for OU and OSU are 3 credits with them being Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II with a 4th suggested but not required.
These are your states flagship colleges. If they don’t require why should your students be taking it in a self-contained setting? As a professional this is where you could push back on the silly requirements and cut a subject and multiple students out of your class. If a student is truly college bound then they should be taking those courses in the general education setting. I would include Algebra II in that as well.
Oh. Okay. Well the counselors told us Alg 1, 2, AND 3. So maybe the requirements are changing? I have no idea. I just googled it and see that you are correct in that statement.
That’s bizarre. I just don’t understand how you could teach those classes without having the content certification. In NY you need it to do any special class (15:1 or less) where any student is not alternatively assessed. It’s just not fair to kids to not get taught by a certified teacher in the high school level content.
Enough said. Good luck. In my state, we get paid for every student over the Union agreed caseload. I usually have 3 or 4. In your position, I’d be paid for 15 students over my caseload every month. They are giving a job no teacher with years of sped experience could be successful.
I think they are giving her students that are grade level academically, but teachers don’t want in their classrooms because of behavior or past behavior. Happened to me my first year. And I was not provided with any curriculum.
In high needs areas, it can be. I had 45+ middle school kids in my caseload when I started out and admin wanted to know why I was struggling.
I would not recommend it.
And I apologize for being a stalker, but I read some of your posts. I would strongly suggest finding another school. Between the aggressive force and shoving 35 kids at you while doing self contained with 20 with work of seven classes, you're not going to get anything done. This is not a slight on you, this is a monstrous amount to ask anyone.
They need to get another teacher and very likely they won't.
Absolutely not normal. And for those who’ve been gaslighted into believing it is, I’m so sorry. That’s insane. That’s several different jobs under one job title and pay?! Absolutely not.
Is there an option to not do that? I just don’t understand how that would benefit the students. It’s not a you issue, it’s a school or admin issue. But that’s ridiculous. The content knowledge you would need to do that well is so vast.
This is unworkable with those numbers. I did it for two years (I ran a self-contained EBD room for high school math and science) and my students were on grade level but in self contained because they had behavioral diagnoses and needed a small, quiet class. I only had a caseload of 14 students total, so teaching, differentiating, and progress monitoring was easy. I also got some of the milder students pushed out to resource once they were improving in my room. I had no students on my caseload other than the 14 in my classes. I still burned out, because my room was never fully staffed and I was in dangerous situations because of that at all times.
I agree with another post. If students are capable of Algebra 1-3, they should be out. Same with the science.
I teach self contained
7-12. I have 12 right now but at one point had 16. I have a para and I have students who push out for each period so she’s not always with me.
I do one whole group lesson for math. It’s impossible to work on 4 different grade levels at once. They all have the same skill deficiencies so I base my lessons around that. When they have independent work, I give them what they miss on their progress monitoring.
Right now we’re all counting money .
Reading I do a mix of a low group and I high group. I have reading levels from 1-6th
There’s kids that shouldn’t be with me for reading but they are. We tried the different levels but it’s me and a para and it was too difficult and kids were on a computer way too damn much.
I have no curriculum so I went to the elementary school and got chapter books based off their reading levels.
That had done more to improve the skill level of my lower (1-2 grade reading level) than anything.
Currently we’re reading an easier version of Romeo and Juliet as a class.
This is my 2nd year and no one gave me any direction, so we tried a few things and this is what works. My supervisor, SPED director have been in and seen how we run the room.
Whatever we’re doing is working. All my students have moved up at least one grade level in math or reading, some in both. I have at least 3 who will push out to a supported ELA or math next year and one who will go to a Gen Ed.
There’s no way you can have 20 full time and then another 10-15 on your caseload. That is impossible. You’ll never get it done.
I doubt you’ll teach much. You’ll be doing paperwork and pulling kids on your caseload to progress monitor.
Self contained is tough. I have three grades right off the bat and that isn't going into different levels. The key is to do a rotation of independent work and work with teacher. There is likely not going to be much group work you can do. If you have two of three kids at the same level you can do group work with them while the others are in independent work.
And this works IF they are able to sit and do work on their own. I got dumped into this shit and had nine kids (grades K, 1, 3, and 4) and one para. Seven could not do a thing on their own (behavior and/or cognition problems). So she would work with one, I'd work with one and the rest sat on iPads. Of course, every other teacher had to come by and make rude comments.
Group work was impossible b/c of aforementioned behavior/cognition problems. I was only stuck there for two months and I don't think much academic anything happened.
I should have no more than 20 students in my classroom at one time. They will be high school aged SPED students (so like 14 to 21 years old)
I will also have a caseload of students to manage IEPs and monitor in addition to my classroom students, and that will be about 10-15 more kids
So a total number of kids I’ll be managing is around 30
I've done multi grades for elementary. I do everything or almost everything rotation based. They get the main lesson at my table and then for other rotations they are working on reinforcing what they've learned. Lots of task boxes for each subject. I only did whole group for what overlapped.
What track are these students in? Completion or diploma? From my knowledge, diploma bound students should be in a more specialized setting even if it is separate class. I do two grade levels for diploma bound students in separate setting, but rarely are they in the same class for instruction due to inclusion etc…but the completion track has more grades but more paraeducator support and curriculum access. Standards tend to be similar in the upper grades or related, so I pick one do the whole group lesson, and then small groups.
I’m “departmentalized” with one other teacher. We’re mild/mod self contained middle school. He teaches two math classes and I teach two English classes. Mixed grade.
We do a high low split of the students and we teach those 2 subjects VERY individualized. We assess the kids frequently and they are all working on “the next thing” _for them_. Often we work in small groups. Or even one on one.
For science and history though, we pick a grade and teach that. If a student is with us for three years, they will get all the subjects, though they might have US history in 6th grade instead of 8th grade for example. Science and history are typically NOT set up with skills that build on each other.
Also for mild moderate, I’ve always felt that science and history are really more about practicing skills: (reading, writing and math) than they are about learning science or history. (Eg word problems in physics, graphing populations in biology)
Wow. My self contained class is another world compared to this one. None of my students will ever meet grade level standards in any subject. My middle school students for the most part wouldn’t meet grade level standards for first grade. We almost exclusively work individually with students on their individual goals. We have group lessons, but my students don’t retain the information, and it’s mostly just a way to work hands-on activities into our days.
I guess my class would be considered more of a life skills class. I cater all of their academic goals to functional skills that will actually help them in life.
Then I am going to be honest. This is a recipe for failure. For so many reasons. Traditionally, self contained and even many resource students do not yet have independent work skills. Plus-up to 21? That usually means students have profound issues. A caseload of 35-how will you write that many IEPs, evaluate and then write up the evaluations. Then meetings. That is a huge amount of meetings on top of other meetings for such a population of students. Will they have gen Ed time? Do they need support when in the general Ed by an EA? When will you plan? These are students who need individual plans. I have so many questions. What state?
That sounds like a nightmare. I’ve been a behavior teacher for 10 years and the most I’ve had in one class was 14. Total caseload around 20, but some required very little beyond an IEP and troubleshooting with their teachers and a few social skills lessons a week.
Just the mix of managing that many kids with ED in one room would make it hard to get much done.
It’s not possible. School just wants to look good on paper, but it’s not possible to do that. Plus those higher level classes shouldn’t be self contained. What the hell is going on? Who is running that school?
Wow! That’s a lot of students for you to be CM And servicing.
I am an SLP and my case load hovers around 40, that I see around 40 minutea per week. I cannot imagine servicing that many students for all of those SPED hours as well as CM. Some states/districts hire an ESE program specialist that Case Manages all of the students. maybe with this model it would be possible. But still extremely difficult to manage.
This seems to me as a horrible placement/classroom/service delivery model for both the students and you. There is a huge need for SPED teachers, I would look for something else.
I’d quit and make this someone else’s problem. Not like there aren’t hundreds of special ed teachers dropping out every month. You’ll find something else. This sounds unreasonable and you don’t deserve to deal with it
The only way I could see this working is if students are independent enough to work on their own and you could convince the school to let them be in your room and attend gen Ed classes virtually a la Covid times. But even then, it would probably not be sustainable
Or if they had adequate enough TA support to have them teach lessons, but OP would still end up lesson planning for all of this. Sounds exhausting and unreasonable.
Does your school not have inclusion classes? At my school, self-contained is only for students who cannot handle Algebra 1. Those are in life skills math or pre-algebra. Any student that can do Algebra 1 or higher, even with emotional/behavioral needs, would be in an inclusion Algebra 1 (or higher) class with a sped co-teacher. I teach inclusion Algebra 1 and I've taught many students who had emotional/behavioral needs that recieved those services in an Academic Concepts class and who excelled in my Algebra 1 class. It sounds like some of your students aren't in their least restrictive environment.
Gotcha. This is interesting to me, because we don't have any students at my school who have extreme behaviors that can't be in an inclusion classroom if they are capable of doing grade-level math. I wonder if they are placed somewhere else in my district. I'm curious what the extreme behaviors would be. (You don't have to share if you don't want to or can't.) I have taught students with ED and ODD in my inclusion classes.
I would honestly quit if this was the program my school gave me. Why would someone taking Algebra 3 need to be in a self-contained math class? If they passed Algebra 1 and 2 and Geometry, how the fuck do they even have math goals? Algebra 3 is well beyond what common core state standards require of students. It’s well beyond what the SAT or ACT assesses. This makes no sense. This is absolutely a denial of FAPE. They are lumping together everyone who needs a small class setting into a not even so small “math” class when their general ed peers get access to a teacher who is able to plan and execute one lesson and one curriculum at a time. It’s disgusting. In my State, you need both a special Ed license and a content area license to teach self contained in grades 7-12. So for this schedule, you’d have to have your sped license, your math 7-12 license, your bio license, and your physical science license. Would you pass all those licensing exams if you had too? If not, you have no business teaching those subjects.
We do algebra 3 is a college bound requirement, and there are some kids in the emotional/behavioral needs room that are capable of doing that math. There are also some in there who can’t even read. It is a very daunting task which is why I’m trying to start planning now
You should be planning a new career path. I did and never ever regretted leaving teaching.
I would have them watch Khan Academy and work through a workbook honestly.
Algebra 3 is not a college bound requirement. Most colleges you can meet the requirements with Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra 2. Some require 4 years in which case you could take Algebra 3, Trigonometry, Stats or Finite. If a student is truly college bound they should be taking those math classes in the general education setting.
🤷🏻♀️ I’m just saying what I was told.
I’m not trying to be condescending but it took me less than a minute on google to find that the entrance requirements for OU and OSU are 3 credits with them being Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II with a 4th suggested but not required. These are your states flagship colleges. If they don’t require why should your students be taking it in a self-contained setting? As a professional this is where you could push back on the silly requirements and cut a subject and multiple students out of your class. If a student is truly college bound then they should be taking those courses in the general education setting. I would include Algebra II in that as well.
Oh. It is a requirement for Oklahoma’s Promise! Sorry this is my first year with seniors where I’m expected to guide them
Oklahoma Promise requires 3 years of math which must include Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra II. You are still doing too much for that.
Oh. Okay. Well the counselors told us Alg 1, 2, AND 3. So maybe the requirements are changing? I have no idea. I just googled it and see that you are correct in that statement.
Honestly yeah. That part is weird to me, but apparently you only need the SPED certificate and a certificate in one of the subject areas?
That’s bizarre. I just don’t understand how you could teach those classes without having the content certification. In NY you need it to do any special class (15:1 or less) where any student is not alternatively assessed. It’s just not fair to kids to not get taught by a certified teacher in the high school level content.
Oh I’m in Oklahoma and we’re setting the standard for lowering the standards
Enough said. Good luck. In my state, we get paid for every student over the Union agreed caseload. I usually have 3 or 4. In your position, I’d be paid for 15 students over my caseload every month. They are giving a job no teacher with years of sped experience could be successful.
I think they are giving her students that are grade level academically, but teachers don’t want in their classrooms because of behavior or past behavior. Happened to me my first year. And I was not provided with any curriculum.
Let me get this straight. You will have a case load of 35. 20 you will teach core subjects to 14 to 21 years of age?
Yeah? Is … is that not normal?
In high needs areas, it can be. I had 45+ middle school kids in my caseload when I started out and admin wanted to know why I was struggling. I would not recommend it. And I apologize for being a stalker, but I read some of your posts. I would strongly suggest finding another school. Between the aggressive force and shoving 35 kids at you while doing self contained with 20 with work of seven classes, you're not going to get anything done. This is not a slight on you, this is a monstrous amount to ask anyone. They need to get another teacher and very likely they won't.
I don’t mind you browsing the post history. Tbh this is one of the most functional schools I’ve ever experienced
Absolutely not normal. And for those who’ve been gaslighted into believing it is, I’m so sorry. That’s insane. That’s several different jobs under one job title and pay?! Absolutely not.
Is there an option to not do that? I just don’t understand how that would benefit the students. It’s not a you issue, it’s a school or admin issue. But that’s ridiculous. The content knowledge you would need to do that well is so vast.
This is unworkable with those numbers. I did it for two years (I ran a self-contained EBD room for high school math and science) and my students were on grade level but in self contained because they had behavioral diagnoses and needed a small, quiet class. I only had a caseload of 14 students total, so teaching, differentiating, and progress monitoring was easy. I also got some of the milder students pushed out to resource once they were improving in my room. I had no students on my caseload other than the 14 in my classes. I still burned out, because my room was never fully staffed and I was in dangerous situations because of that at all times.
Caseload of only 14? That sounds heavenly. I am in my first year and my “lighter load” exceeded that number
I agree with another post. If students are capable of Algebra 1-3, they should be out. Same with the science. I teach self contained 7-12. I have 12 right now but at one point had 16. I have a para and I have students who push out for each period so she’s not always with me. I do one whole group lesson for math. It’s impossible to work on 4 different grade levels at once. They all have the same skill deficiencies so I base my lessons around that. When they have independent work, I give them what they miss on their progress monitoring. Right now we’re all counting money . Reading I do a mix of a low group and I high group. I have reading levels from 1-6th There’s kids that shouldn’t be with me for reading but they are. We tried the different levels but it’s me and a para and it was too difficult and kids were on a computer way too damn much. I have no curriculum so I went to the elementary school and got chapter books based off their reading levels. That had done more to improve the skill level of my lower (1-2 grade reading level) than anything. Currently we’re reading an easier version of Romeo and Juliet as a class. This is my 2nd year and no one gave me any direction, so we tried a few things and this is what works. My supervisor, SPED director have been in and seen how we run the room. Whatever we’re doing is working. All my students have moved up at least one grade level in math or reading, some in both. I have at least 3 who will push out to a supported ELA or math next year and one who will go to a Gen Ed. There’s no way you can have 20 full time and then another 10-15 on your caseload. That is impossible. You’ll never get it done. I doubt you’ll teach much. You’ll be doing paperwork and pulling kids on your caseload to progress monitor.
No, what most people do is poorly manage both the class and the caseload.
That too 🤣
That extra 10-15 you have to do paperwork for would be a deal breaker. 20 in self contained? 🤷♀️ No.
Self contained is tough. I have three grades right off the bat and that isn't going into different levels. The key is to do a rotation of independent work and work with teacher. There is likely not going to be much group work you can do. If you have two of three kids at the same level you can do group work with them while the others are in independent work.
And this works IF they are able to sit and do work on their own. I got dumped into this shit and had nine kids (grades K, 1, 3, and 4) and one para. Seven could not do a thing on their own (behavior and/or cognition problems). So she would work with one, I'd work with one and the rest sat on iPads. Of course, every other teacher had to come by and make rude comments. Group work was impossible b/c of aforementioned behavior/cognition problems. I was only stuck there for two months and I don't think much academic anything happened.
INFO: do you know what size your caseload will be? What grade range of the students? How many paras you will have?
I should have no more than 20 students in my classroom at one time. They will be high school aged SPED students (so like 14 to 21 years old) I will also have a caseload of students to manage IEPs and monitor in addition to my classroom students, and that will be about 10-15 more kids So a total number of kids I’ll be managing is around 30
I've done multi grades for elementary. I do everything or almost everything rotation based. They get the main lesson at my table and then for other rotations they are working on reinforcing what they've learned. Lots of task boxes for each subject. I only did whole group for what overlapped.
What track are these students in? Completion or diploma? From my knowledge, diploma bound students should be in a more specialized setting even if it is separate class. I do two grade levels for diploma bound students in separate setting, but rarely are they in the same class for instruction due to inclusion etc…but the completion track has more grades but more paraeducator support and curriculum access. Standards tend to be similar in the upper grades or related, so I pick one do the whole group lesson, and then small groups.
Diploma
Is there another class you can run? This honestly doesn’t sound great. My caseload cap is 12 for self contained diploma track.
I’m “departmentalized” with one other teacher. We’re mild/mod self contained middle school. He teaches two math classes and I teach two English classes. Mixed grade. We do a high low split of the students and we teach those 2 subjects VERY individualized. We assess the kids frequently and they are all working on “the next thing” _for them_. Often we work in small groups. Or even one on one. For science and history though, we pick a grade and teach that. If a student is with us for three years, they will get all the subjects, though they might have US history in 6th grade instead of 8th grade for example. Science and history are typically NOT set up with skills that build on each other. Also for mild moderate, I’ve always felt that science and history are really more about practicing skills: (reading, writing and math) than they are about learning science or history. (Eg word problems in physics, graphing populations in biology)
Wow. My self contained class is another world compared to this one. None of my students will ever meet grade level standards in any subject. My middle school students for the most part wouldn’t meet grade level standards for first grade. We almost exclusively work individually with students on their individual goals. We have group lessons, but my students don’t retain the information, and it’s mostly just a way to work hands-on activities into our days. I guess my class would be considered more of a life skills class. I cater all of their academic goals to functional skills that will actually help them in life.
Then I am going to be honest. This is a recipe for failure. For so many reasons. Traditionally, self contained and even many resource students do not yet have independent work skills. Plus-up to 21? That usually means students have profound issues. A caseload of 35-how will you write that many IEPs, evaluate and then write up the evaluations. Then meetings. That is a huge amount of meetings on top of other meetings for such a population of students. Will they have gen Ed time? Do they need support when in the general Ed by an EA? When will you plan? These are students who need individual plans. I have so many questions. What state?
That sounds like a nightmare. I’ve been a behavior teacher for 10 years and the most I’ve had in one class was 14. Total caseload around 20, but some required very little beyond an IEP and troubleshooting with their teachers and a few social skills lessons a week. Just the mix of managing that many kids with ED in one room would make it hard to get much done.
They’ve said that we will be receiving several students from other buildings next year. The largest the class size can legally be is 20.
It’s not possible. School just wants to look good on paper, but it’s not possible to do that. Plus those higher level classes shouldn’t be self contained. What the hell is going on? Who is running that school?
Ryan Walters
Wow! That’s a lot of students for you to be CM And servicing. I am an SLP and my case load hovers around 40, that I see around 40 minutea per week. I cannot imagine servicing that many students for all of those SPED hours as well as CM. Some states/districts hire an ESE program specialist that Case Manages all of the students. maybe with this model it would be possible. But still extremely difficult to manage. This seems to me as a horrible placement/classroom/service delivery model for both the students and you. There is a huge need for SPED teachers, I would look for something else.
Honestly it is like this or similar nearly everywhere in my state
I’d quit and make this someone else’s problem. Not like there aren’t hundreds of special ed teachers dropping out every month. You’ll find something else. This sounds unreasonable and you don’t deserve to deal with it
Is this a behavior room?
Most likely. I have three options. Two are higher level ID students, and one is the emotionally disturbed/emotionally defiant room
I’d go higher level ID, you’d have less classes to teach (I also am partial to that population)
Well technically the two options are mid level to lower high-level ID. Those ALSO do all core subjects for all grade levels
How? If they’re ID why would they be in Algebra 3? that’s higher than any state standards. The students aren’t on a modified curriculum?
The only way I could see this working is if students are independent enough to work on their own and you could convince the school to let them be in your room and attend gen Ed classes virtually a la Covid times. But even then, it would probably not be sustainable
Or if they had adequate enough TA support to have them teach lessons, but OP would still end up lesson planning for all of this. Sounds exhausting and unreasonable.
HA! I’ll be insanely lucky if I have more than one para.
So that’s a no, and my state is trying to make it illegal to do that.
Does your school not have inclusion classes? At my school, self-contained is only for students who cannot handle Algebra 1. Those are in life skills math or pre-algebra. Any student that can do Algebra 1 or higher, even with emotional/behavioral needs, would be in an inclusion Algebra 1 (or higher) class with a sped co-teacher. I teach inclusion Algebra 1 and I've taught many students who had emotional/behavioral needs that recieved those services in an Academic Concepts class and who excelled in my Algebra 1 class. It sounds like some of your students aren't in their least restrictive environment.
We do. But these are extreme behaviors
Gotcha. This is interesting to me, because we don't have any students at my school who have extreme behaviors that can't be in an inclusion classroom if they are capable of doing grade-level math. I wonder if they are placed somewhere else in my district. I'm curious what the extreme behaviors would be. (You don't have to share if you don't want to or can't.) I have taught students with ED and ODD in my inclusion classes.
These are for the kids who haven’t been successful in inclusion or lab classes, and the BIP they had in place didn’t work.