Whitewater Unified School District

Whitewater High School
www.wwusd.org

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TEAM MEMBERS: Lanora Heim, Ana Mayorga, Sandy Mansfield, Eileen Busse, Amy Houwers, Roni Telfer

PROJECT NAME: ELL + ENN = Happy Students and Teachers

SUMMARY OF PROJECT:

The main goal of the project at Whitewater High School was to have Special Education and ELL Departments collaborate to help meet the special needs of students. The ideas for improvement that came out of working together were to create a binder of modifications and “can do lists” about each student in the program to give to teachers, hold twice monthly joint-department meetings, establish pass/fail grades for students with severe needs, work on alternative diploma project, develop transition plans, work together to create schedules for students and teachers, and to continue working towards an inclusion model for all students.

TEAM GOAL:

  1. Effectively integrate ELLs into appropriate education programs.  (Main goal is to collaborate more between Special Education and ELL departments in order to better serve students).
    1. Complete intake assessments and ID needs
    2. Improve class placement
    3. Provide teacher assistance whenever possible in classrooms with larger number of ELL or ENN students
    4. Recruit and develop students to assist teachers with ENN and ELL students through internship program

  2. All ELL and ENN students will be successful in America Civilization class.
    1. Establish a class for EEN students to connect with American Civilization class
    2. Improve communication for accommodations between regular education teacher and EEN or ELL teacher

ACTIONS TAKEN:

  1. Held joint bi-monthly meetings between departments.
  2. Changed grading for some students with severe needs to Pass/Fail.
  3. Developed a system for choosing classes for ELL/ENN students.
  4. Working on improving communication between departments and regular education teachers.
  5. Developing an alternative diploma project.
  6. Create a binder with modification requirements and Can Do lists for ENN and Special Education students to be distributed to all teachers.
  7. Provide more training for staff on working with ELL and ENN students.
  8. Train and use students as interns to help in classes with high populations on ENN/ELL students.

TIPS FOR OTHER DISTRICTS:

What worked well?
Collaborating with ELL and ENN departments has been very productive.  We learned a lot from each other.  The students have benefited greatly from this partnership and we want to continue to find the time to work together

What didn’t work?  What were the obstacles?
There is always a difficulty in finding time.  It is hard to find time to meet between departments.  We decided to take half a day and get subs, and also to meet before school since during and after school did not work.  It is impossible to have enough support teachers in classrooms to have a full inclusion model, bur we have made great improvements in this area.  Hence, staffing and scheduling were problems.  We decided to concentrate on required classes.

WHAT WE LEARNED:

That we need to strive for continuous improvement.  Each child proposes a new set of challenges and joys.  That the Special Education department has been doing some things for years the ELL department was trying to create and it is so much easier to do it together than alone.  Finally, we learned that dedicated people are what really make the difference and we are so lucky to work with each other.

RESOURCES:

Weekly Contact Sheet
Modification Checklist
Can Do List
Links for ELLs teachers