Introduction

On October 7, 2018 I, Sarah Blomerth, interviewed Betty to learn her

experiences in working with students with diverse learning needs. Betty lives with her

husband in a small town thirty minutes from her work, Woodfords Family Services -

Waterville Preschool. We sat comfortably on the couch for the interview and enjoyed the

company of her cats. Her husband was in the basement and could be heard singing.

She attended Thomas College and has a bachelor’s degree in business management.

She also attended the University of Maine at Augusta to get the core teaching classes

when she began at Woodford’s. She was working as a waitress when a family with an

autistic son approached her and told her about Woodford’s. She looked them up and

found they had a job opening, and has worked there since November of 2007. Her

official job title is a teacher assistant, and she is certified as an Ed Tech III. She is also a

school-based behavioral health professional. According to their website, Woodfords

Family Services, based in Westbrook, Maine, was founded in 1967 by five families

wishing to provide special education services to their disabled children. Since then, the

agency has grown to provide “an array of clinical, behavioral health and educational

programs to more than 1,500 children, youth and adults living with autism,

developmental disabilities, intellectual disabilities and/or mental health diagnoses

across the state” (Woodford’s). The Waterville Preschool has children starting anywhere

as young as age 2 and keeps them until they go to kindergarten.

Findings
 Each child at Woodford’s Family Services - Waterville Preschool has an

Individualized Education Program (IEP) made by a team including the parents of the

student, the lead teacher, the senior lead teacher, the program coordinator, case

manager, the school’s board certified behavior analyst (BCBA), and any other

professionals that the parents wish to invite, such as the occupational therapist or

speech therapist. The Senior lead teacher writes an individualized treatment plan (ITP)

for each student using goals from the IEP. The ITP has six domains including

communication, cognitive, self care, social, behavior, and motor.

Each classroom has a lead teacher, and a max of eight students, with one-to-

ones. There are three classrooms in the preschool, based on three levels of function.

The preschool helps students work on things starting with self care; brushing teeth,

washing hands, using the bathroom. Students also work on matching/associating,

starting with things like “what goes with a car?” and the student would answer “key”.

Depending on the student and their level of development the questions may be more

similar to “how do car and key go together?” The teacher assistants, who work as the

one-to-ones do data management for at least one kid each. This is graphing scores and

goals from the ITP. They watch if the students are progressing, as well as pay attention

to what adjustments or modifications may need to be made in order to best teach the

student. The ITP is also reviewed to make sure that the goals the student has are

appropriate. There are sometimes inappropriate goals due to a misdiagnosis, or simply

computer error. Students should be meeting goals that are appropriate to their

developmental level.
 Many students also have behavioral support plans, sometimes called positive

support plans. They outline how the student is to be treated regarding behaviors. The

most popular positive reinforcement is the token board system, in which students

receive tokens for completing tasks relating to their goals/behaviors. For instance, many

students have 3 minute timers and if they do not exhibit a “behavior” such as no

aggressions, they get a token. The previous BCBA supported the idea of taking tokens

if the student did not meet the behavior goal. The current BCBA does not support this.

The token economy system begins in the lowest functioning classroom and is able to

work very well by the highest functioning classroom. When students meet a goal of a

certain number of tokens, they get a reward such as a set amount of time with a toy.

Parent involvement is mostly surrounding the annual IEP meeting. Parents are

able to come in and speak to the lead teacher if they have questions or concerns.

Sometimes there are parents who are very invested and curious about what is

happening in the classroom. However, Better feels some parents do not seem to care at

all, as they do not try to learn about their child’s progress or goals. There is a quarterly

review of the ITP done that is sent home. It typically marks off what programs were

done, unless most the programs were completed and more need to be added. Betty

expressed that she feels some parents do not actually read these, but just send them

back. She also acknowledged that this could be due to a lack of parental understanding.

The new leadership that was recently brought in will likely lead more toward family

training nights, which have been done previously. These often gear towards the

augmentative communications used in the preschool. Most commonly used is the

picture exchange communication (PEC) book; a plastic binder that has pages with
pictures/icons. They are used to help teach students to differentiate between objects,

and the uses for the books can be built as the students progress. For example one

student may use the icon to ask for what is depicted on the icon, while another student

may use the icons to start forming sentences. Eventually the students are taught how to

add in descriptors about things in the icons. Because of the developmental variation,

communication or lack thereof can be very frustrating for the student, which is often a

reason behind behaviors. Bringing the augmentative communication, such as the PECs,

into the home would help with that.

The preschool previously had an inclusion program which included up to as

many as 9 typically developing students at a time. It does not always work because

many parents of typically developing kids want their children to spend more time with

typically developing kids, which is difficult with this program. There was also a struggle

to staff teachers who had the correct training and were skilled in meeting the needs of

both the typically developing and non-typically developing students. It may be a goal

with the new lead teacher to bring the inclusion program back, as she is more

experienced with it.

In the last few years there has been a regression of standards students are held

to before being sent to kindergarten. In 2016, when each educator in the room took

turns running centers and social times with different activities, the students were sent to

kindergarten able to read and ride their name, as well as numbers. The next class

struggled to write names and had a hard time with recognition/differentiation of numbers

and letters. Betty said this class is working on identifying colors.

Discussion

There are many excellent things about the Woodford’s Family Services

Waterville Preschool, and areas that could have improvement. The biggest contradiction

with my understanding of best practices for students for disabilities is that there is no

longer an inclusion program. It has been found that students with disabilities benefit

from interaction with non-disabled students in their age group. This is why there has

been a push for differentiated instruction, as addressed in Thousand, Villa, and Nevin’s

(2014) Differentiating Instruction. The need for inclusion is supported in the 2004

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act with the requirement of students being in their

least restrictive environment (Wrights Law).

There also seems to be a lack of overall parental involvement and

understanding. The relationship with students, educators, and parents is highly

important to the continued success and growth of the students. The teachers assistants

who are having the closest interaction with the students are not having much interaction

with parents, which could lead to important conversations. The staff at the preschool

understanding how the child is at home on a regular basis is important, as is the parent

knowing how the child is doing at the school.

Students have been achieving lower developmental goals before leaving the

preschool throughout the previous years. This correlates with a decrease in overall

involvement of the teachers assistants. Betty acknowledged that when students were

reaching the higher goals before leaving, all of the educators in the room were involved

with leading group activities and social times. This participation from the teachers

assistants has decreased with different leadership in the preschool. This does not agree
with my philosophy that the educators should presume competence of their students

and use various methods to best educate them. The previous method showed a higher

success to help the students achieve higher developmental goals.

Although there are some things that do not align with my personal understanding

of best practices for supporting diverse students, there are many things Woodfords

Family Services - Waterville Preschool does that I greatly applaud. The first is the

behavior support plans. It is spectacular that students who require these have their own

plans. I also personally like that many students receive the same positive reinforcement

with the token board. This is a great system that can help the students learn appropriate

behaviors. It is a strength of the system that it is started when the students first begin at

Woodfords, and it progresses with them.

Betty mentioned how the ITP is reviewed to make sure the goals students are

aiming for are appropriate to them. This is immensely important to the child’s education.

If a student’s goal is to tie their shoe but they are already are successful at this, the goal

is not appropriate for that student, and the student will not have as much opportunity for

learning. Similarly, if a student has a goal to form sentences with their PECs book, but

they are still working on differentiating between the icons to identify objects then this

goal is not appropriate as there are still several steps between where the child is at, and

that goal. Having appropriate goals is crucial to a student getting the proper education.

Recommendations
 From my analysis of the Woodfords Family Services - Waterville Preschool, it is

my understanding that there are a few areas for improvement. These are listed below

with recommendations as to how to improve these aspects.

The inclusion program had tremendous potential to help the students with IEPs

that regularly attend the preschool. This is especially true when it comes to typical social

interactions, which is one of the program focuses for the students. Bringing typically

developing students back into the preschool, along with educators who are

knowledgeable and passionate about inclusion, would benefit the development of the

current students.

Parent relations are a large piece of a successful education, especially for

students with disabilities. There appears to be a lack of parental involvement and

information. Increasing parent/family information nights could greatly benefit the

students. The increase in parent communication should also include the involvement of

teachers assistants. Where they are the one-to-ones for the students, they are the most

informed of the students progress and needs in the classroom. Increased

communication between the teachers assistants and the parents could lead to better

understanding of the students diagnoses and development.

There should also be an increase in overall involvement of teachers assistants in

the classroom. The 2016 graduating class showed more developmental progress than

the classes in the years since, aligning with the decrease in overall involvement of the

teachers assistants in the classroom. It is my recommendation that they should return to

the teachers assistants leading circle/group activities and social times. Having the

increased involvement of various educators, as well as more varied and more socialized
activities can help improve the developmental progress of the students. As said in

Chapter 9 of Differentiating Instruction, “When you co-teach to differentiate instruction,

you can increase your effectiveness in teaching students with a variety of instruction

needs,” (Thousand, Villa & Nevin, 257). This way the students may reach higher goals

before attending kindergarten.

References

Thousand, Jacqueline S., et al. Differentiating Instruction: Planning for Universal Design

and Teaching for College and Career Readiness. 2nd ed., Corwin, 2015.

Woodfords Family Services, www.woodfords.org/

Wrights Law, www.wrightslaw.com/idea/law.htm.