GUIDING Special Education CONVERSATIONS

MDE’s Family Guides to Special Education Services Help Teachers, Families Support Students With Disabilities

Brock Turnipseed

Having a child with a disability can be an overwhelming experience for parents as they struggle to fully understand their child’s needs at home and find the educational services to support their development

It takes a community effort from teachers, school administrators and parents to help a student with a disability thrive in the school en-

Vironment

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) makes free appropriate public education available to eligible children with disabilities and ensures they receive special educa- tion and related services Services are provided through an individualized education program (IEP) that outlines how the school will meet its students’ educational needs

The amount of information shared during IEP meetings can be overwhelming for parents, so the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) Office of Special Education (OSE), with support from the Mississippi State University Research and Curriculum Unit (RCU), created the Family Guides to Special Education Services to provide parents a greater understanding of their child’s disability and point to Mississippi-specific guidance and resources to support them at school and home

The OSE used the MDE Office of Elementary Education and Reading’s Family Success Guides as a blueprint

“We saw the impact they had on the field and the support they provided family,” Ginger Koestler, the OSE’s director of policy and practice, said� “We knew our families of students with disabilities would benefit from a similar resource ”

The 14 family guides address each of the 13 disability categories covered under the IDEA and significant cognitive disability Each volume defines the disability, outlines the eligibility requirements, gives helpful vocabulary and provides research-based strategies for parents�

Connecting families and schools plays a vital role in the success of students with disabilities, and Koestler said the OSE saw the family guides as a tool that could be used in building that collaborative partnership

Kristen Richey, a special services coordinator for the New Albany School

District (NASD), said the individual volumes helped parents from being overwhelmed and provided in-depth information targeted to their child’s specific eligibility category

They have also been valuable in connecting the information parents receive in IEP meetings with something they can take home and digest at their own pace

“We talk to parents about how their student qualifies for special education services, but with the family guides we can show them,” she said� “Sometimes we forget that parents don’t live in our world, so the family guides have been a great bridge for us to be able to communicate thoroughly and simply to parents in a serious time with their child and their education ”

Connecting the IEP meetings with the family guides helps build trust and opens channels for more dialogue between school personnel and parents

“It gives them that trust in us of having a resource that is saying the same thing we are,” Richey said “They’ve opened up conversations and helped the parents feel comfortable coming back to us to find out more information and ask questions they might not have known to ask in meetings�”

While the family guides provide a valuable tool for parents, Elisa Goss, the director of special education in the DeSoto County Schools (DCS), has used them to help administrators understand the different eligibility categories and assist new teachers in becoming familiar with the terminology used in special education

“Explaining to parents that their child has an intellectual disability can be a challenge,” Goss said “The family guides help explain that and bridge the gap for the teacher and the parent by answering what that means and how we are going to provide services ”

Goss said the DCS uses the family guides with its preschool assessment team to help parents understand their child’s disability at an early age and offer them assurances that their child can learn

“That is their first experience with special education and the school district unless their child is coming to us from early intervention,” Goss said “The family guides help parents understand that just because their child has a de- velopmental delay in a couple of categories doesn’t mean they can’t learn We just haven’t hit those milestones�

“We’re going to work on those so that we can close the gap as much as possible before the child goes to kindergarten,” she added

While the family guides are designed to help parents better understand their child’s disability, they have also supplemented the Access for All (AFA) Guide 2 0 that the OSE and the RCU created� The AFA Guide 2�0 provides evidence-based tools that can be implemented in the general education classroom to support every student’s ability to learn through different adaptations

“There’s a clear line and connection between the family guides and the Access for All Guide,” Koestler said “Both set up teachers and families to provide the appropriate supports needed for their students to be successful in college and the workforce ”

Goss emphasizes using the adaptations in the AFA Guide with her district’s general education teachers to help meet the learning needs of all students

“I want (general education teachers) to understand it was created for any student, not just students with disabilities,” Goss said� “For students with identified disabilities or getting support for special education, you’re going to go to the Access for All Guide� However, the family guides can help with understanding that specific disability and what potential challenges that student may face so you can hone in on what’s really needed ”

Educators continually seek Mississippi-specific resources, and the family guides are just another tool schools can use to build an educational environment where all students thrive