Toolkit
Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities
These strategies highlight research and best practices, along with short-, medium-, and long-term solutions, as essential for clarifying the roles and responsibilities of both general and special educators.
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School Story
Principal Lee: Role Confusion and Disconnection
Learn from Principal Lee as she improves role clarity among teachers, ensuring that they understand their responsibilities in supporting students with disabilities and implementing IDEA.
Strategy A
Recognize and utilize the specialized skills and knowledge of special educators.
Acknowledge general and special educators throughout the school year for their collaboration and successes in supporting students with disabilities.
Possible Actions
- Celebrate specific general and special educators who are effectively collaborating and spotlight their efforts.
- Analyze and highlight improvements in student outcomes that result from collaboration and co-planning.
- Highlight general and special educators who use innovative strategies to support diverse learners (e.g., assistive technology, universal design for learning).
- Identify and use different modes for recognizing all educators, such as thank-you notes, website spotlights, staff meetings, and newsletters.
- Review district and state policies focused on the use of incentives (e.g., bonuses, gift cards) that can be combined with other forms of recognition.
Facilitate collaborative discussions between general and special educators to understand their strengths and respective roles in the delivery of instruction for all students.
Possible Actions
- Foster a collaborative environment by providing protected collaboration time between special and general educators throughout the year.
- Encourage general and special educators to discuss and align on common objectives for student success.
- Recognize the expertise of special educators and provide them with opportunities to share their knowledge with their colleagues.
- Set expectations for collaboration time to include resource sharing, problem solving using data, and individualized planning.
- Provide opportunities for general and special educators to network, both within and outside the district. This can include attending conferences, joining professional organizations, and participating in online forums.
- Encourage special educators to model evidence-based and high-leverage instructional practices and provide peer coaching to increase the confidence of all educators in meeting the needs of students with disabilities.
Partner with your district office to develop clear pathways for career advancement that include specialized positions or leadership roles for special educators.
Possible Actions
- Involve special educators in district and school policy development and decision-making processes to provide them with ownership and influence over their roles.
- Work with your district office to identify opportunities for special educators to take on leadership roles, such as special education department chair or professional development leader.
- Work with your district office to review your budget and reallocate funds and full-time equivalents for special education teacher leadership and formalized mentorship positions.
- Pilot teacher leader roles for special educators by identifying effective teachers with skills in mentorship, coaching and collaborative practice, along with strong IDEA knowledge.
- Redistribute the current responsibilities of teacher leaders who take on new tasks to reduce their workload.
Strategy B
Understand and support IDEA implementation.
Clearly define the roles, responsibilities, and necessary competencies for all educators and related service providers related to the effective implementation of IDEA.
Possible Actions
- Develop and distribute clear, written descriptions of staff roles and responsibilities for individualizing supports for students with disabilities.
- Incorporate a discussion of roles and responsibilities into one-on-one meetings, observations, and feedback sessions.
- Organize annual training sessions for all teachers to clarify roles and responsibilities under IDEA.
- Create a reference guide or tipsheet for educators with information on who in the school/district to call with IEP- or referral-related questions and needs.
- Enhance the awareness of general educators on implementation of high-leverage practices for students with disabilities to improve instruction and ensure that students with disabilities have access to the general education curriculum.
- Locate and review existing/free professional learning opportunities focused on IDEA implementation and share relevant resources with staff.
Establish expectations and processes for all teachers to share responsibilities in implementing students’ IEPs.
Possible Actions
- Schedule regular meetings between general and special educators to discuss IEP goals, accommodations, and student progress.
- Reinforce expectations for collaboration through classroom observations, teacher discussions, parent/teacher conferences, benchmark data meetings, and annual IEP reviews.
- Survey staff annually to understand their professional learning needs.
- Locate existing/free professional resources to support joint understanding among general and special educators about collecting and analyzing progress monitoring data (e.g., OSEP-funded national TA centers).
- Encourage teachers to observe other classrooms that exhibit shared responsibility for IEP development and implementation.
- Ensure open and transparent communication channels and create mechanisms for ongoing feedback to share observations and insights.
Work with district leadership to leverage IDEA funding to establish a Community of Practice (CoP) for general and special educators to review, discuss, and problem-solve about their roles and responsibilities implementing students’ IEPs, in accordance with IDEA.
Possible Actions
- Meet with district office staff to allocate IDEA funds toward staff collaboration and professional learning through the development of a school-based CoP.
- Use IEP data, as well as disaggregated student performance data, to inform key topics of focus for a CoP (e.g., behavioral interventions, supporting English learners with disabilities).
- Help general and special educators identify common problems of practice supported by the data and further inform the focus area of the CoP.
- Stay up-to-date on emerging research and guidance on inclusive practices and share these resources with the CoP.
- Celebrate and share successes encountered through the CoP, both schoolwide and districtwide, with an emphasis on collaborative practices proven to improve student outcomes.
- Integrate CoP resources and takeaways into regular meetings with general and special educators to enhance clarity regarding their respective roles in implementing students’ IEPs, and adjust roles or responsibilities, as needed.
Solutions in Action
Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities
Niesa Glenewinkel, Grand Oaks Elementary, School Principal, Tomball Independent School District, Texas
In this video, discover how an elementary school principal developed systems to clarify school procedures and processes for all educators, both novice and inexperienced, responsible for implementing IEPs
Related IDEA Considerations
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) helps clarify the roles of both special education and general education teachers, as well as where students with disabilities receive services, which can reduce role ambiguity and increase the feeling of belonging for both students with disabilities and special education teachers. Students with disabilities are considered general education students first, as reinforced by the IDEA least restrictive environment requirements (20 U.S.C. § 1412 (a) (5)).