The Saugus Union School District governing board was presented last week with findings by the superintendent’s special education task force committee and an overview of the social-emotional learning screener mid-year data.
The special education task force committee’s purpose was to identify areas that can be refined to be more cost-efficient and in line with personnel shortages and ensure provision of all students with the services they need to access the appropriate grade-level curriculum and make progress toward goals, read the presentation included on the agenda.
Based on the findings, the task force committee recommended that the district: create a special education handbook, provide training to increase inclusive practices, create a system of training at the beginning of the school year and throughout the year to monitor the process, ensure correct placement of students in programs, and communication between all community partners.
The task force committee is made up of administrators, teachers, service providers, paraprofessionals, school social workers, union partners and parents.
Darcie Quinn, director of student support services, said the task force committee wants to prioritize having at least one representative from each school site in order to have fair input.
“There was a lot of collaboration, a lot of communication that went into this,” said Linda Valdez, a first-grade teacher at Skyblue Mesa Elementary School. “We felt, anyone who was on that committee, we felt really good about what the final recommendations were.”
The first recommendation was to create a living handbook that would be easily accessible and have the processes, procedures and basic information for a special educator.
The second recommendation was to provide training to increase inclusive practices to expand access to the general education learning environment. The task force committee wanted the focus to be to provide teachers with training to make them feel supported when they have special education students in their classroom.
The third recommendation was to identify and create a system of training both at the beginning of every year but also throughout the year to monitor the process for consistency across the district. According to the presentation included on the agenda, the recommendation includes looking into a systematic and sustainable training schedule, staff development days, and a checklist.
The fourth recommendation was to create a structure that allows placement of students based on the least restrictive environment and individual student needs.
The final recommendation was to create a structure to allow consistent collaboration and communication between general education staff and special education staff, paraprofessionals and parents.
The goal, according to the task force committee, is to increase communication between the staff and parents so that there is a plan on how to work with a student and make differences in the classroom.
Quinn said the next step is to get committee members to start working on the recommendations in groups.
Social-emotional learning screener
Tonya Nowakowski, a coordinator of student support services, said what the district focused on is trying to get proactive and preventative around identifying students who may need support or guidance in developing their social-emotional skills.
Teachers and students were tested on the social-emotional learning skills that students present. Teachers were asked questions about grit, self-management, social awareness, self-advocacy, learning strategies, classroom effort, social perspective-taking, emotion regulation, and engagement.
About 4,800 third through sixth graders were tested on self-rating themselves on growth mindset, social awareness, and emotion regulation.
The screener was first taken in the fall semester, and the winter screener compared the results from fall to winter.
Overall for students, 49% of them said they regulate their emotions well – a 1% difference from the fall results. Seventy-six percent of students reported they thought they self-managed well, a 2% difference from fall.
Sixty-three percent of students reported they considered the perspectives of others and empathize with their classmates. This percentage stayed consistent in both the fall and winter screener.
Thirty percent of students reported that they have the potential to change their behavior that impacts their performance in school. This was the only area where students reported a 1% decrease from fall to winter.
Based off the results, Nowakowski said the district will be equipping teachers with tools to review their classroom data and figure out how to engage student voices into the process.
She added that school social workers will work with teachers based on data from the screener to create lessons or groups for identified site needs.
