In Garden, Teachers Tackle Special Ed Challenge

As they move forward with an ambitious plan to turn around a failing school, Brennan/Rogers’ staffers have taken on an extra task — making sure students with disabilities aren’t left behind.

That goal played out in the school courtyard one recent sunny afternoon, where students with autism paired with their general-education peers to pull out head-high weeds from a garden bed. The activity took place during a new ​“high-interest” club as part of a longer school day.

“Pull, shake, bend!” special education teacher Blanka Jamsek cheerily instructed as the group set to work. Click on the play arrow above to watch.

The lesson came as Brennan/Rogers, a K‑8 school on Wilmot Road in West Rock, wrapped up Day 18 of a new school year with a new mission. The school was tapped as the city’s first in-house ​“turnaround,” a low-performing school that’s being reconstituted as part of a citywide school reform drive. The other turnaround, Domus Academy, is being run by a charter school group. Both schools had a massive teacher turnover and lengthened the school day.

An additional new challenge faces teachers citywide, especially at Brennan/Rogers: Making sure special ed kids aren’t just ​“babysat,” but actually learn. Whether they do will factor into new teacher evaluations.

As the school year moves forward, the district is still working out how special education students fit into the new reform drive, which aims to cut the dropout rate in half, close the achievement gap, and make sure all students have the opportunity to go to college. The reform effort is largely, but not entirely, focused on test scores.

Almost one in every five students at Brennan/Rogers (18 percent) is classified as ​“special education,” compared to 11 percent districtwide. That includes 27 kids in four ​“self-contained” classrooms set aside for students with autism.

Most of the students labeled ​“special education” participate in classrooms beside their general education peers. They might have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or another learning disability. Most take the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT), or the Modified Assessment System, a version of the CMT for special education students.

A minority — at Brennan/Rogers, 27 of the 390 students, which is a high concentration for a single school — are kept in their own classrooms for students with autism. These students have far different goals, which may include basic life skills, such as using the toilet, listening to directions, or learning to speak.

Jamsek (pictured) teaches six of these students in grades three to five.

For these students, just walking down the hall, or making it onto the bus, can be a challenge. On the way to gardening class last Wednesday, one student squeezed a teacher so hard from behind that a hug became a choke hold — and required two special ed teachers to come to the rescue.

“Thank you,” the teachers said in a gentle, firm tone as they eased the student’s grip.

“Quiet hands,” they instructed as they prepared the student to join the rest of the group for Jamsek’s Gardening Club.

Student progress in these classrooms isn’t counted toward federal No Child Left Behind standards, nor does it factor into the district’s new way of ​“grading” schools into three tiers based on student performance.

These self-contained classrooms have students ​“who may not go to college, who may not graduate from high school in a traditional sense,” said New Haven school reform czar Garth Harries. ​“They basically age out of the system.”

These students are ​“focused on a different set of skills entirely,” ones that are not necessarily academic, Harries said. Before joining the city school system, he worked as the special ed czar for the New York City school district.

He said even if students are not counted in the tiering of schools, the district is still putting new focus on making sure all students show ​“growth.”

“Growth” will be defined on a student-by-student basis. All students marked as special education have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that charts a path for their progress.

As part of a new teacher evaluation program, these students’ growth will now factor into their teachers’ performance — whether they take standardized tests or not.

“Special ed is a huge challenge nationally,” said Harries. He said the goal is for teachers ​“not just to babysit the kids, but to have them learning. To have them learning things that are relevant to their independence.”

Back in New York, Harries put together a 20-page report for the school district outlining recommendations for serving special education students. He talked about striking a balance between tailoring teaching to address special needs — while avoiding excluding students, such as the case of one special ed student who was kept out of a graduation ceremony of the community school she attended. Overall, he argued, schools should include special ed students as much as possible in activities with their peers. While kids’ daily needs can be demanding, he added, schools need to put more of a focus on their long-term learning goals. (Click here to read his paper.)

Students in Jamsek’s class spend most of the day learning in their own classroom, guided by one teacher and three assistants. They interact with other students during gym period — and during a new club activity time that’s part of a longer school day.

Every Wednesday, students spend the last 45 minutes in what Principal Karen Lott calls a ​“high-interest” club. Students chose between nine clubs, including running, origami, Legos, teaching and broadcasting.

Lott said she came up with the idea after researching successful turnaround schools. The clubs aim to give teachers a chance to share their interests, and help students connect to them in a new setting.

The aim is to ​“have something else, another activity, that kids look forward to doing,” Lott said, ​“to have something that they come to school that they’re really excited about.”

Teachers chose an activity they’d like to lead, with instructions to weave in math and literacy whenever possible.

Jamsek, a 33-year-old native of Slovenia, said she grew up tending to fruit trees and vegetables in her childhood home.

“It’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing,” she said. One of nearly 300 people who applied to teach at the turnaround school, she moved from New Jersey to Connecticut to take the job this fall. She has experience working with students with autism, and in using plants as a therapeutic tool. These students do better with tactile activities, as opposed to trying to sit still in a classroom and watch a movie, she said.

In the school courtyard, Jamsek led 10 students and four other special teachers through a lesson in pulling out weeds.

She said the group includes many students with special needs, students who ​“need a lot of interaction and movement.” Some came from self-contained classrooms, others from mainstream ones.

The previous week, the students learned about the vegetables growing in a different part of the garden. They found tomatoes, peppers, swiss chard and parsley. They wrote down what they found on a chart (pictured).

Last Wednesday, they learned a new task — how to identify and pull out weeds.

“Are we going to pull out tomato plants? Nooooo. Are we going to pull out pumpkins? Nooooo,” she told the class of four boys and six girls.

They stuck with safe territory — an unused bed overrun with tall weeds that reached over some kids’ heads. She directed the kids to pull out the weeds, shake off the dirt, then bend the long stems so they’d fit into a composting bag.

The directions morphed into an impromptu chant: ​“Pull, shake, bend!”

Working in pairs between the self-contained and general classrooms, students dove in and quickly cleared the bed. The pairing went off amicably, until one student got spooked by a student with autism’s high-pitched cry. The student who had caused the scare sat down on the cement to take a breather away from the crowd. In just a couple of minutes, the teachers brought him back to the group, and regained a sense of stability.

“And-a-one, and-a-two, and-a-one, two, three — stand up!” called out two teachers, as they helped the student back to his feet.

It was a relatively minor episode in a job that can be extremely demanding. Just getting on the school bus at the end of the day — a task made harder by a buses running up to 20 minutes late — proved to be an extra challenge. On the way from the school building to his van, one student plopped down on the sidewalk and didn’t want to get up. Another ran to a two different buses and tried to pry open the doors with her hands.

Principal Lott said as the school moves forward with its reform drive, the goal will be to infuse academics in these students’ daily lives.

Students whose IEP excuses them from standardized tests will be tested on a ​“skills checklist.” For a third-grader, that could mean identifying shapes, numbers, and words. Depending on the student, the test could be more basic, such as determining wrong and right behavior, toileting, and expressing themselves through spoken language, which not all students do.

Skills like these will become part of the equation, as teachers soon embark a new round of goal-setting as part of a teacher evaluation program that focuses on student progress. Based on whether their students meet learning goals, teachers will be given a grade on a scale of 1 to 5. Those who score 5, the highest, may be promoted to leadership roles; those who score a 1 will be given more support, and if they don’t improve, asked to leave.

Harries stressed that students in self-contained classrooms represent a small fraction of the students with special needs. ​“The vast majority of the special ed kids have more minor disabilities — for whom high school education and college” are attainable goals.

No matter who the student is, their growth will be counted, he said.

“This is why goal-setting process is important.” Teachers will ​“set goals based on the incoming abilities of students, and where we want to get them. Though they have disabilities that change their learning trajectories, we still want them to be learning,” he said.

As school wrapped up Wednesday, Jamsek said her students had an overall good day. The longer day (extended by one hour and 25 minutes, four days of the week) has been a change. ​“They do have their adjustment issues,” she said, ​“but they’re doing very well.”

Jamsek said she’s looking ahead to teaching the young gardeners how to plant seeds, tend to vegetables, and maybe even take on some ​“light cooking.” She’d also like them to do a little landscaping around the school, maybe plant flowers out front in the spring, so they can see their own work and shape the school environment.

“I think the kids will be really proud of it,” she said.

Past stories on the Brennan/Rogers School: 

• Brennan/Rogers Earns Magnet Status
• No Naps For These Kids
• Turnaround Team Sets To Work
• Two Failing Schools Aim High
• West Rock Kids Reap Two-Wheeled Rewards
• Brennan/Rogers Prepares For Turnaround