I love this question because my student teaching position was an itinerant position. I did my student teaching at Exceptional Child Coop in Houston, MO, they serves about 12 different school district with all different kinds of services (SLP, Adaptive PE, Early Childhood, and Deaf Education). I traveled between 4 school districts every day and it was hard to find time to really talk to the people we need to talk to. If I need to talk to a teacher about a student, we would try to leave early from one school so we can talk to the teacher at the next school. This was hard because we rarely enough time, so my model teacher would usually send out an email the night before so the teacher would know that we were trying to talk to them. We did a lot of our consulting on email. Trying to consult with the parents, was extremely hard because we were never there when the parents picked up or dropped off. Again my model teacher would text the parents saying that we placed something in their child's backpack. This way the parents were aware that we are trying to communicate with them. We had one student who was kicked out for 25 days due to behavior. The IEP team decided that this child needed services and couldn't go that long without any services so we decided that the child would be dropped off at school and then would be picked up after our time. This was the only days that we were able to talk to the parent. When the parent or the aunt drop the child off, we would consult with them briefly asking them how the student was that day. Then we would work with the child for 90 mins and when the parent came to pick up, again we would talk to them about how the child did, what we worked on and what was expected of the child later that week (i.e., spelling test and a reading test). I remember one day the child received their first 100% on a reading worksheet and was so proud to show dad!! When dad picked up the child, the child proudly gave dad the paper that had a big 100% on it. Dad was so happy for his child. After the child came back to school, I gave a spelling test and the child received an 100% on that (1st time on the spelling test) the child put it in the notebook and I hoped the dad saw it. I enjoyed those 25 days because I was able to actually talk to the parents to let them know what was actually happening while the child was in my care and they actually saw what we were i.e., on and those results.
Even though there was no time to talk or consult with the parents and the teachers, I liked that I had the kids one on one. I didn't have to be distracted with the other problems that can pop up in the classroom and the child didn't have to compete for my attention. Once I pulled the child out of the class, they had all my attention and we were able to have fun and learn through play.
My teacher was an itinerant as well and I really enjoyed it. Each day was something new. We saw different kids on different days. This made the week go by really fast for me.
ReplyDeleteIt is great to hear your story about the student. But I am stoned that they could kick out a student for 25 days -- more than a month!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed going to a different school every day as well, because it really broke up the day, and sometimes it just nice to get outside for a minute. :-) However, I still think it's hard on itinerant teachers to keep up with all their students and their needs. Especially if the student is in special ed, gen ed, receiving speech services and services from an OT and PT like a couple of my students were. Thankfully, my district only has a few OTs and PTs so I became very familiar with them and collaboration was easy.
ReplyDeleteI think that just as with everything else, itinerant services could be a really great thing, or a not so great thing depending on who is providing the services and how they are being provided. I can definitely see the benefits of this type of service, and I can see how it would be very enjoyable as a teacher. I have really enjoyed hearing about everyone's different experiences!
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