• Safety Harbor Middle's Philosophy on Inclusion:

    It is the philosophy of Safety Harbor Middle and the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) that all students can become knowledgeable, creative, invested, and empowered citizens given the necessary accessibility to resources, guidance, accommodations, and differentiation in instruction. It is the responsibility of leadership and instructional staff to reduce and remove barriers to teaching, learning and assessment to manifest authentic student learning. Safety Harbor Middle has no academic admission requirements and accepts students through our District zoning and district magnet application process.

    Purpose of this Document:

    This document is intended to communicate the scope of inclusion services at Safety Harbor Middle to all stakeholders- administrators, teachers, students, and parents/guardians. The document identifies the special educational needs of our student body and the process of referring students for special education and inclusion services. Additionally, this document aims to explain the responsibilities and roles of teachers, families, and students when meeting the needs of our diverse student body.

    Process to Identify Inclusion Needs:

    Students are referred by parents and staff for behavioral and academic concerns. Referrals can be addressed through parent-teacher conferences to determine next steps. Often, concerns result in implementing interventions, beginning assessments for 504 or special education eligibility, beginning counseling services in school, or coordinating with community providers to establish outside resources. Safety Harbor Middle has multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) meetings, which occur every two weeks with administration, school psychologist, behavior specialist, school social worker, and grade level counselors. The team monitors student success and modifies broad level interventions (tier 1), small group interventions (tier 2), and individual interventions (tier 3) to address needs. If students in tier 3 are continuing to lack progress, the team meets to modify interventions or consider additional supports. As students make progress in their tier, continued monitoring informs the team that individual interventions can be scaled back.

    Inclusion Instructional and Support Staff:

     

    Roles and Responsibilities

    Exceptional Student Education (ESE) Teacher

    Delivers special education minutes and teaches goals to students identified with special education services, collects data on goal progress, attends meetings and communications with families and school teams about student growth. 

    Gifted Department

    Team of teachers that provides Educational Plan services to identified gifted   students.

    ESE Case Manager

    Consults with ESE teachers and school staff to monitor student progress. Schedules and conducts meetings about individual students and their progress.

    Behavioral Specialist

    Conducts behavioral assessments for referred students and helps identify plans to decrease behaviors.

    Social Worker

    Counsels students, leads meetings for attendance concerns, supports crisis situations, develops family and community relationships to support students.

    School Psychologist

    Supports schools and students by consulting with school staff, counseling students, attending meetings to address school-wide and individual student needs. Identifies and implements interventions to determine if students require more supports to access their education

    Speech/Language Pathologist  

    Provides direct and consult services for language and articulation deficits

    VE Specialist

    Specialist trained in special education who supports school teams in ensuring services and supports are following federal and state laws.

     

    Roles and Responsibilities of all Stakeholders:

     

    Teachers will…

    Families will…

    Students will…

    Universal Design for Learning
    • Provide multiple ways of representing content to all learners.
    • Allow students multiple opportunities to demonstrate their learning.
    • Plan class structures and routines that are predictable.
    • Develop approaches to learning and the attributes in the IB learner profile in students.
    • Strive to become more knowledgeable through continuous professional development to learn strategies to support all learners.
    • Collaborate with teachers to help them become more knowledgeable and aware of their student’s needs and differences.
    • Support student learning by asking their student about their learning at school and monitoring student’s planner at home.
    • Maintain open communication with the school to better assist with the learning process of their child.
    • Be open and flexible to different approaches to learning.
    • Be an advocate for their child.
    • Attend meetings and share strengths, concerns, and areas of improvement for their child.
    • Provide updated, relevant medical information.
    • Collaborate with teachers to help them become more knowledgeable and aware of the differences that may exist in the classroom.
    • Prepare students for optimal school performance including, diet, rest/sleep, and other basic needs.
    • Provide structures conducive to learning in the home (i.e., quiet study area/time).
    • Encourage independent thinking and reflection of work.
    • Demonstrate open-mindedness and acceptance of new learning experiences.
    • Learn to work collaboratively to make learning relevant.
    • Practice open-mindedness to multiple perspectives to increase understanding.
    • Understand themselves as a learner.
    • Be open and flexible to different approaches to learning.
    • Inquire, act, and reflect on their strengths as learners.
    • Develop productive relationships with teachers and peers to support academic and social learning.
    • Advocate for use of accommodations and other needs.
    • Ask questions when clarification is needed to improve comprehension.
    • Be reflective learners and provide and receive constructive feedback.
    • Be principled and act with academic integrity on all assessments of individual knowledge.
    • Self-advocate and communicate needs for assessments.
    • Be caring and compassionate of others.

    Differentiation

     
    • Continuously review and adapt teaching methods given anecdotal and assessment data to engage student learning at the edges of the achievement spectrum.

     

    Inclusion
    • Provide students with accommodations and/or support in the general education classroom or other appropriate setting.
    • Continue to grow their approaches to teaching to meet the needs of all students.

    Assessment
    • Regularly observe and formatively assess students to drive instruction.
    • Develop authentic performance assessments to match the strengths and needs of all learners.
    • Record and report accurate assessment results.
    • Progress monitor approaches to learning.
    • Encourage and develop principled action during assessments.

     

     

     

    Terminology:

    The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): a law that makes free appropriate public education available eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and ensures special education and related services to those children. If children are found eligible under IDEA, they receive services through their public school that includes specialized instruction to and accommodations through a plan created for their specific needs. The plan is called an individualized education plan (IEP)

     

    Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504: a civil rights law designed to protect people with disabilities from discrimination. In schools, students who have disabilities that impact their educational progress may be eligible under Section 504, providing students reasonable accommodations for access to their learning. Students who are eligible for accommodations have a 504 plan written, which is a legal document and protected by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR).

     

    Gifted Services: students who have documented superior intellectual development. Students eligible for gifted services have an educational plan (EP) to track their progress related to gifted goals and expectations.

     

    Universal Design for Learning (UDL): teaching approach to give all students equal opportunity to learn and succeed.

     

    Differentiation: ways in which teachers adjust and make changes to their UDL teaching methods to meet the learning needs of individual students

     

    Inclusion: students placed in age-appropriate classes to receive high quality instruction, interventions, and supports to succeed within the core curriculum.

    Multi-tiers of Support System (MTSS): evidence-based model of educating students that uses data and problem solving to integrate academic, behavior, and social-emotional instruction and intervention to maximize the success of all students. Instruction and intervention is provided to students across multiple tiers of intensity based on need.

                                                                               A three-tiered instruction/intervention framework is used to organize resources