1. How in the world are we going to get enough man power to do this? We already don't have enough people for the schedules that would be ideal for our kids. How are we going to man multiple co-teaching classrooms at a time? What about the kids who are determined to have a LRE outside of the general education or inclusion classroom? How will we have time to work with them if we co-teach all day? What about when behaviors erupt suddenly and we are pulled from the classroom? How will the general education teacher adjust when they are counting on us effectively implementing co-teaching. In my opinion, if it is not implemented correctly, it is less likely to actually work for all students involved.
2. How will evaluations fit into this new teaching model since it already does not fit our line of work anyways? We have enough trouble with evaluations already. Maybe co-teaching is the answer and both teachers are evaluated at the same time. Either way, the state needs to come up with a rubric for various kinds of teaching. They want us to differentiate and creatively teach, the old way of teaching is out the window, however they have so far been unable to differentiate their evaluations for different kinds of teachers. Confusing? Unfair? Ironic? I think yes.
3. And if "a high percentage of students with disabilities in a class is problematic as it reduces the positive effects of groupings and interactions with typically achieving peers," as the book states, how in the world are we going to be able to keep class sizes that small and one SSS teacher co-teaching in the same classroom all day? Again, how in the world are we going to get the people we need to pull this off. We would need multiple SSS teachers per general education team. If we are going to do this correctly, WCS has to be on board to give us what we need.
Those are my thoughts for this chapter. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their summer!
