Special Education for Beginners | Managing Paraprofessionals, Special Education Strategies, First Year Sped Teachers, Special Ed Overwhelm, Paperwork for Special Education Teachers

#43 The Basics of Behavior with the Autism Helper This episode is a doozy...and I say that because it’s such a broad topic that every single teacher deals with...whether they are special education, regular education, elementary, middle or high school...behavior is something we all face at some point in our career.   However, as special educators, we definitely see the majority of behaviors in chil...

#42 Why Routines & Procedures are Important in Special Education Today’s show is all about the importance of setting up routines and procedures within a special education program. Both research and experience tell us that... it is more effective to build positive behaviors than control negative behaviors and that classroom routines can positively affect students’ academic performance as well a...

#41 The Importance of a Mentor: How to Last in Special Education Because you are listening to this podcast, I can assume that your career somehow involves education. And I can assume that because you work in the field of education that you know the crisis our profession faces right now with the low numbers of teachers graduating from college and the high attrition rates education faces as a whole....

#40 Incorporating Life Skills Elements into a Resource Room with Heather Cacioppo As a special educator who primarily runs a resource room with my co-teacher and 7 paras, we do have students from time to time who have more needs than a typical resource room can provide. It might be that they are included within the general education setting for as much time as possible but they come to us for life...

#39 Delaying Access to Special Education: How Parents and Special Educators Can Work Together to Prevent It On last week’s show, I talked all about how to build relationships with parents and how to work together as a team for the benefit of the child so I thought having a parent on the show and getting their perspective and their input would be beneficial. Today’s special guest is Aaron Wright. A...

#38 How to Build Relationships with Parents: 3 Tips to Get Them to Know, Like and Trust You The topic of today’s show is building relationships with your student’s parents and this topic is one that is truly one of the areas that is often overlooked in its importance when it comes to being a great special education teacher. Knowing how to work with parents of students with special needs is just as...

#37 5 Tips to Becoming a More Reflective Teacher  “Purposeful reflection means not just thinking about our behaviors and their effect on the work we do, but doing something about it. 'What am I going to do differently in order to better meet student needs'"- Tony Frontier I have this quote printed on a little card and I keep it in my desk drawer so that I can see it every time I go...

#36 7 Ways to End a School Year: Tips for Special Educators As special educators, we often have hearts bigger than the typical human, therefore causing us to worry more about our students...about our duties...about next year...well...almost everything really. But we can't do that to ourselves. We deserve to be able to take a break from our stressful jobs, reconnect with family and friends and...

#35 AAC for Beginners: Understanding the Basics of Using Augmentative Alternative Communication I was so excited when our speech and language pathologist recommended to the IEP team for one of my students to get an AAC device. Before it came, we started her on the low-tech version of LAMP- practicing new words with just a laminated copy. And then it came and it looked so daunting to me. I hadn&apo...

#34 Co-Teaching Within Special Education: The Art of Making it Work Co-teaching can be a pretty hot topic in the world of special education. Some teachers enjoy it while others have either not co-taught at all or have had a negative experience. For me, I've been on both ends of the spectrum.  Today's guest on the Sped Prep Academy Podcast is Ashley Lutz from Spedtaculardays and she share...

Episode 33- How to De-Escalate: Strategies for Special Educators If there is one thing within the field of special education that I could pinpoint as the hardest, it would 100% be the behaviors. And if I was a gambler, I'd put big money that I'm not alone in that opinion. Today’s show is focused on de-escalation and I’m joined by Kaylan Long from Caffeinated Behavior Change. Kaylan serve...

Staying organized as a special education teacher is not my jam. I mean, sure, I do have a few systems in place just to be able to keep my sanity, and my amazing paraprofessionals help to keep things picked up and keep the room tidy but when it comes to serious organization, I miss the boat every year. I like to joke that I’m a type A wanna be because I LOVE organization but fall short in making it...

I came across the  teacher Brooke Brown in 2018 when my district began the state redesign process of imagining what our school could look like if the teachers were given the flexibility and freedom to dream big. A team of teachers from my school drove five hours to meet with this teacher, and I can tell you...she is such an inspiration. She is just bubbly and full of energy and I kinda wanted to b...

#30 How Special Educators Can Support Their SLPs with Tara from Autism Little Learners I’m going to have to be honest...I used to be very confused when it came to working with our SLPs. The students would leave my classroom or their general education classroom for usually 20 minutes 2-3 times a week and when they returned it was back to business as usual. There wasn’t ever much, if any, collaborat...

#29 15 No Prep Fine Motor Activities with Erin from You Aut-A Know As special educators, we know the importance of letting a child do things for themselves to promote independence but also so they can develop their motor skills, specifically their fine motor skills. And luckily, incorporating fine motor activities into a student’s daily routine doesn’t have to be hard. Many toys are designed to de...

#028 Tales of Teaching with a Best Friend (and why we highly recommend it!) Today’s guest is my ride-or-day...the other half of my brain...the person who makes me laugh every single day...the one and only Mendy Stevens. Mendy and I met in the summer of 1995 when we were both brand new special education teachers at the same school and since that time, we have worked out of the same classroom for 26...

#027 Training Paraprofessionals Using a Handbook with Stephanie DeLussey Using a paraprofessional  handbook to train your staff might be the most effective and easiest way to train paraprofessionals, and today Stephanie DeLussey joins me on the podcast to answer questions about using this training format within a special education department. Stephanie is the face behind Mrs. D's Corner, The...

#026  3 Easy Ways to Create an Expectation List for Your Staff I did not go into teaching special education to be a boss...I went into it wanting to make a difference by teaching the most special population of children, but I soon realized that it wasn’t an option. At the ripe old age of 23, I was officially the boss to my first paraprofessional and then spent the next 20 years trying to figure ou...

#025  Supervising Paras with More Experience Than You Today’s show is based on a quote I came across while reading a book on leadership. It’s from Ralph Waldo Emerson and it states… “The attitude of the leader determines the attitude of the pack.” As a special education teacher I lead a pack....or a team as I prefer to call it. In fact I’ve lead a team for 26 years and I can honestly share with yo...

#024  Supervising Paras with More Experience Than You Working with paraprofessionals can be one of the best and hardest things about being a special education teacher and that’s why I use the Sped Prep Academy platform to focus on it so much.   But it can be particularly hard when you're a newer teacher and working in a classroom that has experienced paraprofessionals. It can feel weird to gi...

#023 Supporting Your Paras in the Inclusion Classroom One of the main roles a paraprofessional plays in almost all special education programs is to support students within the general education setting. Inclusion is a term used when a student is educated, to the maximum extent appropriate, in the classroom he or she would otherwise attend. It involves brining the support services to the child and...

#022 How to Show Appreciation to Your Paraprofessionals I hate the words " JUST a paraprofessional." There is no JUST about it. These individuals are worth their weight in gold. Special Education teachers cannot do what they do and be successful at it without the help of the special angels who work in our classrooms...These individuals are my right hand and sometimes 1/2 my brain. They a...

#021 Building Trust Within Your Department with Kara Mease Paraprofessionals must have knowledge and skills to support our students and they must be good at building relationships with children. Like other educators, a paraprofessional needs to know when to step back and encourage a student to be independent, but also when to step in and provide assistance. Paras must have good time management ski...

#020 3 Tips to Become the CEO of Your Classroom If I had to pinpoint one thing that has made the biggest impact on the success of the special education program at my school, I would have to say that it’s mindset. I know that word is used a lot lately...but there's a reason for it. Your mindset on how you approach a situation can either make or break it. In the world of special education, maki...

#019 Making the Move to Admin Whether you are just starting out in your career or have been teaching for a while, you probably at least have some inkling of whether or not you want to pursue an administration job in the future. For me, it was never in the plan. I love being a teacher leader but definitely do not have the ambition or desire to become a principal. But for Dane Parcel, a former co-te...