Individualized Learning Plans

 Full Article

Key Points:

- School system in Indiana wanted to develop individual plans for their students with unique education situations

- The district had no tools in place for this so they used Google Docs to collaborate

- Students were to take part in creating their individual learning plans (ILPs), and they were live documents that changed as their needs in education changed

- After one year, the ILPs failed, as they were too much work to keep up with

- The moral of the story is to try, and understand that failing is learning

Relevance:

This article is highly relevant in education because it supports trying new things and understanding that "failure" isn't really failure. It is a chance to revisit something and try again. The ILPs described are also very similar to Oregon's Individual Education Plans (IEPs).

In researching articles for my inquiry question I came across this article which has 5 key steps to best practices in successful transition planning that guarantee student success... I am looking at ways to have students lead their IEP meeting and how to better plan for transition
http://www.seenmagazine.us/articles/article-detail/articleid/1071/special-ed-transition-planning-five-keys-to-success.aspx

11/19/2010
student success
CARMEN CAVOLO

Transition Planning and the IEP

Transition Planning for Students with IEPs

http://www.greatschools.org/special-education/health/873-transition-planning-for-students-with-ieps.gs

I found this article regarding planning for Transition when a student has an IEP.  I have read the article and found that it covers many areas of consideration when planning for Transition i.e. when, who, outcomes and resources.  This is an area that I see under communicated and the importance needs to be recognized.

Court Upholds Federal Teacher-Protection Law

"Court Upholds Federal Teacher-Protection Law" by Mark Walsh

Education Week

Published Online on February 10, 2011

Complete Url:  http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/school_law/2011/02/court_upholds_federal_teacher-.html

This article was written in Education Week so is intended for the Education Community, but I think it is applicable to all of society as it answers the question about if a school can be held liable for the safety of its students.  Here is the basic summary from the article:  "A federal statute meant to give teachers and school administrators protection from legal liability over their efforts to maintain safe and orderly schools has been upheld against a constitutional challenge. The Missouri Supreme Court, ruling in a lawsuit in which a student who had been slashed by another student sought to hold a school superintendent liable, held that the federal law was a valid exercise of Congress' powers under the spending clause in Article I of the Constitution."

For teachers and administrators, upholding the Paul D. Coverdale Teacher Protection Act is good to know you will not be held liable if a student injures another student.  The ruling also upholds the premise that a person (the attacking student) is liable for his own actions and the blame cannot be shifted to the teacher even if the student had attacked others in the past, had previously had brought a knife to school and the school was not made aware of his history.

On the other hand, it would seem to make sense to let a the student's new school know he has had a violent past.  Since the new school will contact the old one to obtain the student's record, this seems to be a matter of common sense to include the student's history.  Add to the fact the student was in Special Education and had an IEP and nothing of his violence was recorded in the IEP seems almost negligent to me.  My son has Asperger's Syndrome and in Minnesota and here in Oregon almost everything about his behavior was recorded including times when he flashed anger when he was frustrated at school.

For us as future teachers and possibly administrators this article brings up points that are extremely relevant as we probably all encounter a situation as described above.  It is good to know we will be protected and students are responsible for their own actions.  However, I believe the previous school should have included the times of violence in the IEP and was negligent in not doing so.  Thoughts?