Least Restrictive Environment
What is it?
The IDEA act prescribes into law that all US students have the right to a "free and appropriate education" in the "least restrictive environment" (LRE). This law specifies that "to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities, including children in public or private institutions or other care facilities, are educated with children who are not disabled, and special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of children with with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability of a child is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily" (Sec. 612 (a)[5]).
In short, this law states that special needs students are entitled to be included in a "normal" classroom, through the use of "supplementary aids" to enable them to keep pace with the non-disabled students, if at all possible.
Supplementary aids and services vary widely depending on the needs of
the child. It can be as simple as having a teacher's aid in the
classroom to assist 6 or so students with learning difficulties to having a
teacher's aid that is assigned to one student throughout the day in
his/her regular education classes. Disabled students also have may
access to a Speech, Occupational and/or Physical therapist on a regular
basis. Additionally, disabled students are given access to a variety of
technology-based assistive devices such as an iPad, iPod, laptop,
special software and ergonomic devices, just to name a few.
Who decides what is satisfactory achievement?
In theory, parents, teachers and administrators work in harmony to ensure that disabled students are able to achieve their highest potential, in an environment that best suits their academic, social and emotional needs. In a perfect world, parents are realistic about their child's abilities and are willing to respect the input of those who see the child each day in the "normal classroom setting".
Unfortunately, we all know that perfect worlds don't exist. The truth is that a school has the burden of proving, usually after a series of problems and negative outcomes, that a student belongs outside of the "normal" classroom. While many parents are realistic about the needs of their child and the proper placement for them in the academic setting, some parents defy logic and push for services and placements that are both unrealistic and unfair to the disabled student. This is especially true of children with disorders that leave them academically on level, but socially or emotionally stunted (such as high functioning students with Autism, students with Bi-Polar Disorder, etc). In order to over-rule a parent's wishes, no matter how unrealistic, schools must allow the student to fail, even if multiple experts see the problems impending and advise otherwise, while putting non-disabled students at risk, to have the student placed in a non-traditional classroom.
How does this effect the disabled student?
A wrongly placed disabled student is put under immense stress.Depending on the disability, students suffer from a variety of negative consequences when misplaced into a regular education setting. The following are only a few of the negative impacts inflicted on wrongly placed special needs students
- Loss of self-esteem - I have witnessed complete personality changes in students who are misplaced. As the year goes forward, they can see the difference between their achievement and the achievement of others in the classroom. I have heard students refer to themselves as "stupid", "retarded" or "worthless" simply because they have been placed in an environment where the minimum expectations are beyond their reach.
- Anxiety and duress - A student who is overwhelmed by noises, motion and/or other stimuli can often be placed under extreme duress by the most simple classroom activities. Students who are given separate projects/assignments that accommodate their learning needs often do not understand that they are not responsible for the project given to the rest of the class.
- Loss of educational opportunity - The most egregious effect of misplaced students is the loss of educational opportunity. While a student is struggling to comprehend objectives that will have no place in their future, they could be learning life skills such as social norms, hygiene, independent living skills, and/or IQ appropriate core academic objectives.
Even with a teacher's aide dedicated to assisting the student, some disabled students are still unable to cope with the simplest demands of a standard classroom. The noise of a group project can send a student into a dangerous rage. Having a teacher gently redirect a student off task can incite an unforeseen rage, resulting in thrown desks, broken equipment and injured teachers or students. Because of the way the IDEA law is written, teachers are expected to make major changes to their classroom expectations, projects and assignments to accommodate the needs of disabled students, but sometimes, even major changes do not benefit the student.
How does this effect the non-disabled students?
- Students placed in a classroom with a misplaced special needs student are robbed of opportunities and learning experiences. In a classroom, teachers have limited time to meet objectives. When a teacher has a student or student(s) who are misplaced, he or she often spends much of their time trying to address the needs of the misplaced student, taking valuable time from other students. This also limits the amount of reinforcing assignments, as time becomes a pressing issue. Fun and engaging projects are often scrapped because of the misplaced student's potential negative reaction.
- In many cases, students are placed in danger. When disabled students are overwhelmed, frustrated or angry, they can resort to primal reactions to vent their frustrations. These primal reactions can result in harm or injury to students who directly or indirectly inflict the frustration or anger or students around those offenders. Peripheral students can also be injured in the crossfire of such a rage. When students of any ability level are concerned for their safety they do not retain information or focus on learning as they would in a stress-free zone.
- Non-disabled students are often put in a position of being a peer-counselor to the misplaced disable student. This is a noble and seemingly win-win situation, IF the students are properly trained and supported by adults. Often, because of overcrowding and over a dozen special needs students being grouped into a room in addition to a misplaced special needs student, peer helpers are either not proficient enough to assist displaced students or lack the patience, knowledge and training to deal with a demanding student for whom they are somewhat responsible. This leads to not only the displaced students being further behind, but also placed duress on the peer tutor.
How does this effect the teacher?
- Dedicated
teachers suffer great angst when a student is not capable of doing the
assignments required to meet core objectives. Either a separate set of
lesson plans must be developed to meet the needs of the one student
and/or fun, engaging projects must be scrapped in order to avoid
upsetting or overwhelming the misplaced students. Teachers have their creativity stifled and are often left feeling overwhelmed by the demands of a misplaced students
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A major concern for many teachers is the lack of training they are given in how to deal with a student with severe emotional or social disabilities. Although most universities include a Special Education course within the Education College, it is often minimal. There is very little, if any, training in how to address the needs of students with Asperger's or a more severe form of Autism. Because of a lack of preparation, teachers often are left to use online literature to find articles about incorporating difficult students within the course. This literature may or may not help the problem.
- Teachers often become overwhelmed and frustrated with the feeling of being unprepared for a student or being unable to help a student make progress that is meaningful. The frustration also builds when teachers see that non-disabled students are being held back by the demands and attention needed to try to get one disabled student to a level that is often unachievable.
- Teachers are often not given a voice as to the placement of students within their class. This is especially true of teachers of elective courses. Even when a student is on a diploma tract for Special Needs students, they are still placed into electives courses where the content is not proper for their ability. In my early years of teaching, I had students placed in my computer classes that did not know the alphabet and were not able to speak. One child, who was non-communicative and wasn't even potty trained, was placed in a class whose objectives included creating and manipulating databases and spreadsheets.
Summary
The
problem with LRE is that it takes a major negative outcome to change
the placement of a student. In other words, potential danger seen by
teachers and counselors must be realized before they are given the
opportunity to protect the disabled student, non-disabled students and teachers from impending harm. How is
that fair to any party?
My county has recently become a 1:1 learning community, providing MacBooks to our 9 - 12 graders. We plan to add grades 7 and 8 in the 2013-14 school year. There were plenty of bumps in the road, but now most teachers on my campus are at least beginning to redefine their lesson plans to integrate technology.
Currently, my school system blocks from student computers ALL Social Media and Video websites as well as most Blogs. The blocking system also picks up key words that insinuate "inappropriate material", which can often be innocuous words or phrases. This is a major problem for innovative teachers, like myself. I have had numerous times where lessons were planned and tested against these blocks only to find new blocks added in the time between my test and implementation within my classroom. To say this is frustrating is an understatement. I am not alone in my quest to include Social Media in the classroom. USA Today covered this topic in this article, dated July, 2011.
I understand the theory behind the blocks, but would like to make the case against such blocks:
- Students need direction in properly using Social Media - Social Media creates as many opportunities as it does problems. Most parents have little knowledge of the Digital Footprint their children are creating. Today's students and parents need to be educated on the far-reaching effects of poor decisions on Social Media. Until schools begin to incorporate systematic and in-depth education for both students and parents on the many potential dangers of Social Media, we are not truly educating our students. Incorporating Social Media in the class is the first step in this process. By having academic Social Media accounts that are backed by parent and student contracts of appropriate behavior, schools are taking the lead in teaching students how to harness the power of the Internet and use it for their benefit. Some schools are actually teaching students to "Scrub their Digital Footprint", while others, like Burlington, MA, is taking the lead in educating both students and parents, as is described in this article. You can find many great ideas of implementation plans and rules, but none as interesting and complete as this article.
- Students are already using Social Media during school via their mobile devices - No matter how hard we try, fighting the use of Social Media via mobile devices during school is a losing battle. Even if teachers are vigilant in their classroom, there is no way to engage with students and monitor every motion of all 30 plus students in your room. It is also impossible to control postings from the restrooms, during break and in lunch. If students are already accessing Social Media in the school setting, why not harness that interest for academic purposes, which brings me to the next point...
- Teachers need to meet students where they are - I have heard too many students refer to the computers as a "waste of money" and as "boring" and "useless". WHAT?!?? I then ask the same students how they use the computer that is fun...and the winner is...yep, Social Media! How engaging would it be to give students the freedom to collect information for a project using their favorite Social Media site? How about creating a mentor program that allows students to correspond with community leaders (NOT Strangers!) via Twitter? Students could have a Twitter chat with other students from around the globe studying common subjects or harness the power of hashtags. The opportunities are engaging and endless, but also blocked! Lessons using Twitter
- Students will not have such blocks in college and beyond - By not training students to manage their use of Social Media (and other digital distractions), we are doing them a disservice. It is much akin to not teaching time-management or collaboration skills. When students move to the next level, either college or career, they are completely unleashed into the Social Media universe and we are not preparing them to manage all that is entailed in that freedom. This point is well developed in this article by Ian Jukes
- Teachers, coaches and club sponsors already turn to Social Media to get out important information - Social Media is the best, cheapest and most effective for of advertisement for school and athletic events. Almost every club, sport and major function at school is somehow on Social Media. By not incorporating students with the planning and disbursement of these Social Media advertisements, we are missing a huge learning opportunity. As it stands currently, either a teacher or parent has to create the ad OR a student had to create it at home without the direction of a teacher. Social Media can not only serve as a marketing tool for organizations, but also an actual meeting place, as is the case in this Canadian school book club.
- Social Media is the best mechanism for sharing content with all school stakeholders - One of the best parts of "Open House" for my elementary aged son is showing off his hard work. Once a student hits the teen years, they still want to show you their accomplishments - just not in front of their peers. Posting finished projects to Social Media gives students the ability to show off their work without being embarrassed. It also allows teachers to show the community what exciting projects are being completed in her class. There are a host of ways to use Social Media to communicate, such as those outlined in this article. YouTube allows students to create projects that can be appreciated and viewed by a global or local audience. The most important objective of a publicly shared project is teaching students what is appropriate and inappropriate to post and what personal information is safe to include in your Social Media site. If you are wanting to control the audience of such projects, Vimeo offers video upload sites that can be password protected. Vine, Twitters new video site, offers a multitude of lesson opportunities.
- Authentic learning opportunities abound with Social Media - When a student knows that his or her work is going to be used for an authentic purpose, the engagement and attention to detail increases exponentially. I have recently created a YouTube channel for our Guidance office. The content on the site has been created by Freshmen in my Multimedia Design class. Instead of creating fake videos for fake events, the students have worked in groups on videos that include directions for registration for each grade level, athletic offerings and guidelines, an overview of current clubs, and, most impressive, a Virtual Tour of the school that integrates a video tour of the school with a 3D Model of both the exterior and interior of the school. Not one person in this project did not participate. The drawback to this project was that, because YouTube is blocked, I had to complete the project by uploading, organizing and tagging their finished products. This was an enormous missed opportunity. While I did show the students the steps that I took to upload, organize and tag the videos, student engagement was minimal. It was a very sad ending to a wonderful project. Other teachers have used Social Media for authentic learning, as is described in this article.
- Social Media opens new lines of communication - Students who correspond with educators and administrators in an appropriate Social Media manner are given a new way of sharing problems, warning of impending trouble and reaching out for help in times of crises. Connected educators can also support students' needs through applicable posts without singling out a specific group or person. Schools are also given the opportunity to share information with large groups. Even Marketing firms recognize the potential for communication expansion, as this article, published by Innovative Marketing Resources.com, well explains.
- Social Media is everywhere - From QR codes to Facebook; from Twitter to Instagram, you can't turn on the TV, read a magazine or check your mail (both snail mail and email) without seeing a reference to Social Media. Every business and organization is leveraging these free, powerful tools to grab the attention and engagement of customers - why is education choosing a different path?
For more ideas on using Social Media in the classroom see the following links
A Teacher's Guide to Social Media
The 25 Best Pinterest Boards for Educators
Why Teachers Should Use Twitter
Using Social Media for Real-World Learning
5 Steps to Using Social Media in the Classroom
