Verdugo Hills High School WASC Self-Study Page 1

Verdugo Hills High School WASC/CDE Self-Study Reportyearly goals on student IEPs as well as accommodations for 504 plans.Teachers in these meetings discuss the best ways to individually helpstudents succeed in the classroom. Each case is different, but many studentswith special needs are accommodated with extra time on tests andassessments, lecture notes in advance to aid student learning andopportunities to re-learn difficult material.Because Verdugo follows the philosophy of putting students in the leastrestrictive environment, many students with special needs are mainstreamedinto general education classes with support from the resource specialist.Some students who may not function well or who need a more personalized,direct and intensive instruction model are put into the special day programand taught in smaller classes by certificated special education teachers.Many of the teachers in the special day program provide small group stationactivities run by the classroom teacher and paraprofessionals thatincorporate hands-on learning and provide students with direct, intensiveinstruction usually at a 3-to-1 student teacher ratio. These small groups helpstudents with attention problems or visual and spatial ordering problemsreceive the instruction they need as outlined in their IEPs.The Verdugo Learning Lab offers all students, including students with specialneeds, the opportunity for tutoring in the content areas. Students who enterthe labs are given the opportunity to use computers to work on assignmentsand more intensive, direct instruction is offered in line with research basedpractices. Often students need help learning material conceptually andaccess the curriculum best through the manipulatives provided in theLearning Lab.Special education teachers make heavy use of MyData, Welligent, andstudent cumulative files to help aid their understanding of students.Teachers look for trends and patterns within the data to see where they canbest support the general education teachers and how they can improvespecial education services. The interface on MyData allows special educatorsto create custom lists and disaggregate data amongst a large demographicof students very quickly. The data also helps special educators see whichVerdugo Hills High School WASC Self-Study Page 94