Staff are trained to look for deficits and teach up skills, to hold a standard and expect students to meet it. That training made sense in the context it came from. What it does not account for is a classroom that looks fundamentally different than it did twenty years ago. Students whose neurological profiles require a completely different framework to understand. The inclusion movement has brought more students with complex and splintered profiles into larger classroom settings, and when the right training, tools, and support are in place, it works. Without them, it is an incredibly difficult ask of everyone in that room. The staff, the support staff, a hopeful family, and most importantly, the student.

 

The frustration your staff feel is real. "Why can they do it one day and not the next?" is a fair question if nobody has ever explained it in a way that actually connects to the child standing in front of them. Staff need more than sensitivity training or lectures about what they are doing wrong. The student outcomes when the team understands the brain they are looking at and what that brain needs to learn are what we need to focus on.

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School staff across Long Island are working harder than ever with students whose needs are more complex than ever, with support and training that has not always kept pace with what we now know about how different brains learn, regulate, and belong. That is not a criticism of your team. It is the reality of what special education looks like right now on Long Island.