Individual Education Plans

Core Concept: No “Othering”
We believe that while certain exceptionalities require specific services and accommodations, we need to think about all of our kids as needing and deserving of individualized education.

We advocate for as many of these services as possible to occur within general education, creating the support and structure for all of our students to get the individualized care to help them thrive alongside the entire student body.

Development Periods
Our development period is one primary way to support individualized education. The daily development period allows every student to be working on individualized needs. Specific tenets of each student’s IEP can be addressed and served during this period. We also can augment student learning by helping teachers and paraprofessionals to adjust and adapt the curricular content through the lens of the IEP. It is essential that we do not create cultures of “othering” among our students and instead find ways to meet the needs of students in the general education arena.

Paraprofessionals/Small Classes
Our teachers are already overburdened, so this will require additional paraprofessional support. We propose 1 paraprofessional for every 4 IEP students in a classroom. Keeping class sizes smaller is also very important to a dynamic and thriving learning environment. These investments are critical to the success of all of our students, as well as the morale, retention, and attraction of new, diverse, great teachers.

CTE Paraprofessional Program
We have a great need for more support. We propose creating a CTE program to develop paraprofessionals within the PPS student body, and ready our student population for post graduate employment with PPS!