Tom Green
795 Meadowlark Street
Livermore, CA 94551
650-759-4643
The Changing Face of Service Delivery and How to Avoid Being Rolled On by Your Administrator While Still Acknowledging the Need to Evolve
CARS+ Sacramento February 20-21, 2015
Common Core standards, technology as an instructional tool, Learning Centers, Response to Intervention, Multi-Tiered System of Supports, push in, pull out, blended classes, reading and math support classes, …..
The legal mandate for the traditional public school system is to support every child to meet or exceed grade level standards, yet that mandate does not come with sufficient resources to reasonably meet it. Site administrators face tremendous pressure from the central office to improve achievement by identified special education students and all subgroups of students not currently meeting or exceeding grade level standards, yet are given few, if any, resources to make significant improvements in service delivery. They seldom receive additional staff, money, meaningful training, or high quality materials. Instead, they get piecemeal information supported by hit and run training about various service delivery models that are presented as “the answer,” and are expected to implement these models with existing staff.
Functionally the main support system for a school attempting to improve its outcomes and meet this mandate is the Resource Specialist. The Resource Specialist really is the heart of the support system for all students not currently meeting or exceeding grade level standards. The Resource Specialist is the first staff person looked to when new service delivery models are implemented. And yet the same dilemma that faces the site administrator faces the Resource Specialist- no new money, staff, training, or materials.
We're getting a lot of inquiries from members about how to protect their students and programs (and sanity) in the face of administrators who are demanding more and more while offering less and less. At the same time, we can and should improve our practice and the achievement of our students. Unless almost all of the students we support are making sufficient progress to accelerate their achievement and meet or exceed grade level standards, we should be actively striving to improve our practice. Some of the service delivery models have proven highly successful when effectively implemented.
What to do; what to do. This presentation will be a collaborative discussion of service delivery models, resources, legal issues, and problem-solving strategies to improve student outcomes under the circumstances described above. Tom has served in all of the roles involved in this complex drama- instructional assistant, classroom teacher, Resource Specialist, union president, site principal, school board trustee, service delivery model trainer, and various central office administrative positions.