Challanges in Special Education/504

I interviewed one of my assistant principals at my high school. I asked her what she believed were the two most challenging issues that she deals with in regards to special education, specifically 504's.

The first challenge she said was in the area of accommodations. Accommodations such as extended time, teacher generated notes, preferential seating, read alouds for tests, were requests that in her opinion and the opinion of the counselors, we reasonable. However, some parents tend to make requests that were just not feasible. Some of these were 200% extended time on tests, videos of all teacher lectures, calls to parents whenever an assignment, project, quiz, or test from the teacher was given, or expect the school to assign an EC assistant full time to their child when in fact it is not necessary. She runs into problems when parents make these request and when she has to say no and they insist it is necessary and their right by law.

Th second issue in regards to 504's was the amount of time she and counselors spend each week in IEP meetings. She on average attends three to four meetings a week (which she is required to do) and these meetings can take up to two hours, sometimes longer. Counselors have case loads of around 50 students per teacher in our school, some schools the number can be significantly higher. In addition to the meetings counselors have to follow up and ensure teachers are following specific accommodation for each child assigned to ensure compliance. The hours necessary for this can be at times overwhelming especially when you add the other responsibilities of an administrator.

Although she believes that this process is beneficial to most students however some students and parents take advantage of the process and insist upon accommodations that they really don't need and students can actually do themselves.