A special education supervisor is responsible for managing various activities in the education al establishments for special-needs students. Among the responsibilities of the supervisor are based on his/her experience and education.
However, the daily duties of every supervisor include creating district policies, lesson plans and direct instructions and performing various administrative functions for school. Supervisors who generally work with special-needs students may be specified in different fields, for example, some specialists may work only with emotional, behavior or physical problems.
However, a special education supervisor should know to handle different situation that can be related to different aspects of school in-basket activities. This piece of writing is aimed at finding a decision for handling two in-basket activities that are related to different issues, the first activity is related to work with visually impaired children, the second one deals with organizational activities (organization of work of school principals).
Situation № 1. An eight-year-old, visually impaired student come to your district. You should work out a program for him/her and provide special types of services for this student.
The first thing that a special education supervisor should do is to inform every teacher that a visually impaired child will attend their school. All the things should be arranged in order to provide this student with all necessary services, as there should be an individual approach to every student, especially, if he/she has some disability.
A supervisor should contact parents and interview them about the psychological state of their child, health and special conditions that should be provided. A supervisor should also ask about conditions of education in previous school.
The next step will be to get yourself acquainted with Program Guidelines for Visually Impaired Individuals of the Department of Education in your district and with other specialized literature on the issue (if the supervisor is not specialized in this field). Further, on, a supervisor should provide special instructions based on the student’s needs where he/she should outline teachers’ responsibilities.
Consulting with teachers is important in terms of solving all problems which can occur with methods of working with the student (student should receive detailed instructions from every teacher individually). A final step is to prepare needs-specialized equipment and materials intended for working with the visually impaired students.
Moreover, a visually impaired student should be provided with a person who will assist a student on the way home and to school. A qualified person (teacher of students with visual impairment) should also visit a student periodically. Even if there is no such a specialist in the staff of a school, the supervisor should arrange those meetings.
The needs of every student should be taken into consideration, especially, if the student has some disability. The Department of Education should provide teachers and supervisors with programs for work with people with disabilities.
In the Program Guidelines for Visually Impaired Individuals provided by the California Department of education indicates that its main aim is to inform parents, staff and administration of school about organization of activities (planning, identifying, evaluating and improving and providing cost effective program for serving visually impaired students (Corn & Huebner, 1998).
Situation № 2. The principals of two schools are apathetic towards special education students and programs. As a director of special situation, one should persuade those people to carry out their responsibilities.
There should be some reason why principles do not carry out their responsibilities. The first thing that should be done is the interview with both principals and monitoring of their activities. A supervisor should find out the reasons of such behavior and persuade the principles to be serious about their work.
A supervisor can offer principles to pass a test on special education, which is aimed at defining the awareness of these principals of the special education program, and its core principles. The next step is to evaluate if these people know their responsibilities and what should be done to improve their work.
The final step is to make an individual training for every principal. Thus, the training should include three sections: a principal should explain his behavior, describe the reasons of it; the supervisor should explain to the principal his/her responsibilities; the supervisor and principal decide the best ways to solve the problem. After the training, the supervisor should monitor the activity of both principals for some time.
The responsibilities of the principals of educational establishments are very broad, especially, if one is a principal of a special education establishment. Today, all schools should provide students with disabilities with an appropriate access to the educational process. Thus, every school should have a special program to work with such students.
Consequently, the principals of such educational establishments should assess in the process. (DiPaola & Walther Thomas, 2003). Thus, the school leader should possess special skills and knowledge in order to provide an effective special education.
Thus, the responsibilities of a special education supervisor are very broad. A supervisor should deal not only with school program and planning. One should know to work with students with disabilities and arrange the work of teachers and principals of schools. In order to be a good supervisor, one should be well aware of the school policy, rules and different programs that are aimed at enhancing school activities.
References
Corn, A. L., & Huebner, K. M. (1998). A report to the nation: the national agenda for the education of children and youth with visual impairments, including those with multiple disabilities. New York: AFB Press.
DiPaola, M.F., & Walther-Tomas, C. (2003). Principals and special education: The critical role of school leaders. (COPPSE Document №. IB-7). Gainesville, FL: University of Florida, Center on Personnel Studies in Special Education.