Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments 21 kids: includes 4 LD, 3 G&T, 1 DS, 1 ASD, 5 EL.

In addition, 1 LD is ADHD and medicated, 1 EFL is ADD and not (mom agrees w/accommodations granted for problems, but will not medicate kid as advised by Dr, as long as kid behaves, school says ok to that).

1 teacher w/ no SPED training, but w/a Masters in something called Curriculum. She can speak French, the first language of 2 of the ESL kids, but all classroom instruction is in English, so the kids are expected to be reasonably conversant and be able to read fairly well by this age/Grade.

No trained/assigned in-class aides, only volunteer moms on occasion to help control chaos/keep order/help do bulletin boards, clean up after projects/restock supplies, run errands, help with lunches, etc.

Pull outs for LD, ASD, G&T; once or twice a week. Lots of self-led/directed work done independently by the G&T kids, plus some major group projects the whole class will work on.

Differentiated instruction for all, daily.

The school psych comes in to observe and make recommends if more pullouts are needed. A reading specialist pops in to help with children having difficulty with that when they focus on that.

OT and Speech therapy for LD kids takes place after school for 35 minutes twice a week. My child, G&T, may participate in that.

Pullouts during the day are 45 mins each; no more than 1 per day per kid.

Sound workable and with a good rate of success for all types in the class, withis teacher to ration, and these types of issues and no in-class aides?

Any teachers/moms with classrooms that are similar that can predict/say?

I am not sure about the levels of giftedness or delays for these kids but my DD was in a yr3 class of 22 children which had at least two kids in G&T extension and I think more than 4 receiving special Ed support pull outs. There was one child who was freshly arrived from China and had ESL pull outs. If there were any kids with ASD issues they were mild and no downs. One teacher, no aides, but our teachers are well supported. The classroom is heavily differentiated and we were very happy. But I can imagine it being a disaster too depending on the teacher or school, and the level of giftedness or delays at play.

Sounds similar to many of the classes I have taught recently. I would say that's workable, depending. Every student is different, and sometimes one with no diagnoses, eligibilities or acronyms is more difficult to manage than the kid with the 3" file. How well the school functions will make a huge difference as well.

With this much information I assume you work for the school?

Our school would probably put an aide in that classroom, though it really depends on the individual profiles of each child. Knowing "ASD" or "LD" means very little; it's how each particular child learns and copes with the environment that shapes the classroom.

It wasn't clear to me exactly what you're asking for-- your child will be placed here and you want to know how it will go? It probably depends more than anything else on the capacity of that teacher. Our teacher from last year could have handled that sort of group without batting an eye, again depending on the individual kids' behavioral profiles (whether disabled or not disabled, I should add). Some teachers can't handle having even one child who's "different" in their classrooms.

Like Beckee I'm a little surprised at how much information you have. Certainly who's medicated and who's not is considered highly private in our school.

Good luck starting your year,
DeeDee

Wow, how did you find out the information about all those kids? The only reason any parent knows anything is if a parent tells someone else, I thought. Isn't medication private?

Anyway, it is probably not too different from many classes. I don't have data (not permitted, privacy) but just from observing classrooms, that sounds pretty "normal." More kids get diagnosed and identified every year. Are they calling this an inclusion class, or is it just a regular class?

I'm so curious as to how and why this info was given out...I know that's not the topic of the thread, but I can't help being curious!