Supporting Parents of Special Education Students During the Pandemic: Special Education Teachers' Perspectives

• In Event: COVID Lessons: What the Pandemic Is Teaching Us About Teacher Innovation, Collaboration, and Leadership

Abstract

Purposes
This paper presents a portion of the findings of a larger study on teacher adaptations to teaching remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this paper is to discuss special education teachers’ experiences with providing instruction remotely to students who are served in self-contained special education settings.

Perspective
At the most general level this study focuses on the unique needs of children who receive special education services within self-contained classroom settings and their caregivers at home. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 1997) views parent participation as a core component of programming for students who receive special education services. The terms “parent involvement” and “parent participation” generally refer to a range of activities and are often used interchangeably within professional and popular literature as well as policy and guidance (The Family Empowerment and Disability Council, 2012). Individual parent participation ranges from passive to assertive and varies in intensity, focus and arena (Trainor, 2010). Given the current stay at home orders and the closing of school buildings, caregivers are being asked to play a more direct role in supporting the educational needs of their children. This demand can be especially challenging for caregivers of children who received specially design instruction.

Data Source and Methods
Thirteen teachers were interviewed using Zoom video meeting software. Interviews were transcribed using Zoom transcription software and Otter.ai transcription software. Follow-up interviews were also conducted. The entire data set was analyzed to identify a variety of accounts of teachers about teaching children with exceptional needs remotely. Glaser and Strauss’s (2000) constant comparative analysis method was used to code interview transcripts to develop themes that depict the perspectives of participating special education teachers.

Results and Scholarly Significance
Analysis of the transcripts indicate that teachers had several general concerns about their ability to provide service to students with special needs remotely. These included concerns about inequities in availability of caregivers, loss of routine and resulting regression in learning, and differences in behavior and self-regulation at home. Teachers reported feeling
under-prepared to coach caregivers on how to use instructional strategies at home and address the differences in family involvement during online learning. Areas teachers identified in which they need professional support and development were:

• How to deliver evidence based instructional strategies through remote technologies
• How to facilitate caregiver delivery of strategies
• How to coach caregivers on behavior management strategies
• How to respond when caregivers opted out of services

The presentation identifies specific forms of special educator professional development and support that are needed to respond to the conditions of this crisis. Where there is a knowledge base that can address concerns, targeted professional development focused on the specific challenges listed above is needed. In many cases, however, the research on these topics will lag behind the needs of the crisis. This reveals a need for developing habits and infrastructure that support special educator collaboration, peer to peer knowledge sharing, and practical problem solving. Examples of the efficacy of such practice-based innovation and knowledge sharing will be provided.

Author

• Stacy Leanne Arbuckle, University of Oregon