Action Research Project: Overrepresentation of Minority Students in Special Education

Rationale and Purpose

The purpose for my leadership project was creating a cultural awareness that acknowledged the relevant policies used to identify students for special education. Taking a close look at data and systems that lead to the reasons or affects of disproportional representation/ identification of colored students in special education. The 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) attempted to address the disproportionate special education enrollment for students in specific racial or ethnic groups. The intention was that my awareness project would promote the advancing of educational equity of students with special needs at my school site.

As a special education teacher it frustrates me when the solution to helping an at-risk or struggling student is to seek assessment for special education services. It seems that students are being given up on rather than being supported. Students are labeled as having a disability and their success is justified by their disability. It’s acceptable if they don’t achieve because they have a disability. At a school site where a majority of students are English Language Learners I feel that many students are being referred or identified based on their language or the fact that their English Language Development is not being supported. A long-term goal of providing awareness to this issue is that students’ needs will be met collaboratively and addressed through the use of different modalities of effective teaching and teacher collaboration.

The team was comprised of the School Psychologist, myself (Resource Specialist), Intervention Coordinator, and EL Coordinator, parents, as well as referring general education teachers.  The School Psychologist provided data as well as names of students that were green lighted with assessments that did not qualify for special education services based on them not meeting safeguards that were not met prior to assessment. My role as a Resource Specialist and Student Success Team coordinator was to work with the Intervention Coordinator to provide Learning Center services and intervention opportunities as well as continuous progress monitoring to track growth. The EL Coordinator was valuable in addressing concerns with English language development. Parents were extremely valuable in this project, if not most valuable. Their awareness in data and the process of identifying students for special education allowed them the opportunity to understand requirements and safe guards prior to agreeing to assessment. Referring teachers were essential for the buy in necessary to develop a strong tier two intervention that will provide students the opportunity to be successful in an inclusive general education setting. Together with stakeholders, research and professional development series that includes teacher awareness training, examinations of how students are identified for special education, increased and improved monitoring and early identification of kids at risk for reading problems.

Literature Review, Root Cause Analysis, Logic Model

Below you will find a comprehensive visual of the literature review and root cause analysis that informed the development of the logic model for this project. The logic model will outline the problem, assumptions, activities, and anticipated outcomes of the action-research project.

There is a wealth of information regarding the disproportionate identification among certain sociodemographic groups that are disadvantaged. With my specific focus area, overrepresentation of minority students in special education, I was specifically interested in the inequalities in identification (dispelling low expectations/deficit thinking) and how the affects of low economic status suggests that identification of learning problems reflect social differences rather than learning differences (Shifrer et al. 2010). Much of the research points to the fact that an overrepresentation problem has existed for more than twenty years, and though some progress has been made the overrepresentation of minority groups still exist today. Moreover, studies identified that the subjectiveness to identifying students contributes to the disproportionate identification. Most studies emphasized the need to prevent the misidentification of students by creating a prereferral process that eliminates biases. Though creating a strong referral process will not eliminate the overrepresentation of groups it will shine a light on the inequality.

Over Representation of Minority Students in Special Education Logic Model

During the course of the leadership project, several challenges arose that required changes to be made to the original implementation plan.

Fidelity of Implementation: Since there is limited opportunity to create for planning time and quality professional development. My focus was shifted to creating an awareness of prereferral success and overall special education referrals.

Data Collection: The Intervention Coordinator, a vital team member of the project left in the middle of the school year. Originally it was planned to have some quantitative data, but the project only allowed for anecdotal data from the school psychologist. There was not a track of referral cases over the previous years with correlation to the students who were referred for special education and whether or not they went through the appropriate channels before assessment was recommended.

Data

The focus of the project was to create an awareness of the over representation of minority students in special education. Through improving the schools pre referral interventions it was expected that there would be a limited number of referrals for special education, and those students that were referred would have gone through a comprehension pre referral process.

Ariel’s progress with and without intervention.

In Kindergarten, Ariel was provided with intervention in the Learning Center and made significant improvement. In first grade intervention was not consistent as well as SST actions were not carried out at home which led to Ariel’s regression in progress. Now that Ariel fell behind and action steps were not completed, Ariel’s progress has regressed and assessment has been formally requested. Ariel was assessed this school year (as a second grader) and was found eligible for special education services under the eligibility of Other Health Impairment (OHI).

My school was scheduled for Division of Special Education’s Strategic Operating Plan (SOP) pre-referral data collection visit. The purpose of the visit was to collect data related to the SOP, and is not evaluative in nature.  District- wide data will be examined and used to make future recommendations for pre-referral activities and supports for our students.

The data analysis team sat with me for approximately four hours as we reviewed the pre-referral an intervention procedures as well as all cases that were green lighted for assessment.  Overall, there were only five initial assessments this school year. Though there isn’t a log from last year, as the Resource Specialist I am confident that there were more last school year, as I am required to complete the academic assessment.

Each student that was recommended for assessment went through Coordination of Services Team (COST) and Student Success Team (SST). The awareness created through my plan and the professional developments that I provided the staff provided an awareness of the overrepresentation of minority students. Providing teachers with additional support and strategies at COST meetings allowed students underlying needs to be met before wrongly being marginalized.

Modifications and Improvements

Upon reflection there are modifications that could be integrated for better outcomes.

-Collaboration with a greater team to develop further interventions and strategies that can be put in places to prevent special education referrals.

-Developing parent workshops that explain the pre referral process in detail in order to receive support and input from a valuable stakholder group.

Reflection

Through this action-research leadership project, my identity as a leader has grown immensely. This project has forced me to assert myself in a leadership position and has provided me confidence. I’ve become a leader by possessing a transparent vision of educating all of our students and ensuring that they have an equal opportunity to quality education. My work identifies the plethora of reasons over representation of minority groups exist, but it’s what I can do as a leader to identify the underlying reasons to create a culture of high expectations for all students. I must continue to work diligently to continue redefining the goals and functions of special education in an increasingly diverse society. With that said my project could make a difference for students and save them from the unnecessary, negative connotation of being learning disabled “different” or less able than others. I will continue to create an awareness while facilitating my vision. Through the course of my leadership project I have been able to use tools that I found helpful such as referencing literature to inform my research as well as developing a root cause analysis to identify the root of an issue.

CPSEL Connection

During the course of my leadership role in planning, developing, implementing and evaluating this leadership project, the following CPSEL standards were met.

Standard 1 Facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by the school community.

1.1- Facilitate the development of a shared vision for the achievement of all students based upon data from multiple measures of student learning and relevant qualitative indicators.

1.2- Communicate the shared vision so the entire school communit understands and acts on the school’s mission to become a standards-based education system.

1.3- Use the influence of diversity to improve teaching and learning.

Standard 2 Advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth.

2.1-Shape a culture in which high expectations are the norm for each student as evident in rigorous academic work.

2.3- Facilitate the use of a variety of appropriate content-based learning materials and learning strategies that recognize students as active learners, value reflection and inquiry, emphasize the quality versus the amount of student application and performance, and utilize appropriate and effective technology.

2.4- Guide and support the long-term professional development of all staff consistent with the ongoing effort to improve the learning of all students relative to the content standards.

Standard 3- Ensuring management of the organization, operations, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.

3.2- Utilize effective and nurturing practices in establishing student behavior management systems.

3.3- Establish school structures and processes that support student learning

Standard 4 Collaborating with families and community members, responding to diverse community interests and needs, and mobilizing community resources.

4.1- Recognize and respect the goals and aspirations of diverse family and community groups.

Standard 5 Modeling a personal code of ethics and developing professional leadership capacity.

5.1- Model personal and professional ethics, integrity, justice, and fairness, and expect the same behaviors from others.

Supporting Documents

-Assessment Activity

-Strategic Operating Plan email

-Pre-referral Prezi Presentation