Special Education for Beginners | Managing Paraprofessionals, Special Education Strategies, First Year Sped Teachers, Special Ed Overwhelm, Paperwork for Special Education Teachers

Ask Us Anything Series: Part 6- Interview Questions + Progress Monitoring

• Episode 167

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Welcome to 6th segment of Ask Us Anything. In these fun episodes of of the Special Education for Beginners podcast, Jennifer and her monthly co-host, Paul,  answer the questions you ask.

Today's questions:

  1. Yesenia asks “When applying, what interview questions should I expect and what should I ask?"
  2. From Mark..."I don't understand how to progress monitor and keep up with all that data."

Talking Points:

  • Interview Tips for Special Education Teachers:
    • Importance of asking about interview panel members.
    • Significance of having special ed teachers in the interview process.
    • Key interview questions on collaboration, behavior management, differentiation, and paperwork management.
    • Jennifer emphasizes the importance of being proactive with consistent expectations and routines.
    • Paul discusses the strategic approach to discipline and inclusion in general education activities.
  • Progress Monitoring:
    • Strategies for effective and manageable progress monitoring.
    • Using tools like spreadsheets and established programs (e.g., AIMSweb, FastBridge) for tracking student progress.
    • Importance of consistency and rewards for student improvements.
    • Jennifer suggests a new exit ticket system for weekly progress snapshots, available as a growing bundle on TPT.

Resources Mentioned:

Prepare for a job interview with these 50 potential questions and example answers Interview Questions for Special Education Teachers | Resume Template

Pinpoint exactly what skills your students can and cannot do, write goals and PLAAFP statements using the assessments and then use the same progress monitoring forms to track the data K-5 Progress Monitoring Assessment System

Brand New Resource: Special Education Exit Tickets for Progress Monitoring-Growing Bundle

These exit tickets provide a structured, consistent method for special education teachers to gather real-time data on student performance. These Exit Tickets are customized to align with the goal:
Exit Tickets for Progress Monitoring

Writing individual impact statements based on a student’s unique disability  and needs can be a big struggle AND a big time suck.! And in case you haven't noticed...extra time is not something you have a lot of.

My IEP Impact Statements Growing Bundle will give you  the resources you need to make writing impact statements a breeze.  





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Speaker 1:

You're listening to the Sped Prep Academy podcast. Your host, jennifer Hoferberg, is an award-winning veteran special educator who shares her experience, knowledge and passion to help other special educators survive and thrive in this profession. Join her and other guests as they share tips and tricks of the trade for the ever-crazy, completely overwhelming, laugh-so-you-don don't cry profession of being a special education teacher.

Speaker 2:

Well, hey there, and welcome back to another episode. Today is the first week of June and I've got my monthly co-host with me here, paul, for the sixth installment of the Ask Us Anything segment. So how are you today, paul?

Speaker 3:

I'm doing good Off of school. Slept eight hours last night. It's good.

Speaker 2:

Life is good, huh. Well, you have some news for the listeners, so do you want to share that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, it's very, very much a roller coaster over the past couple of months, but long story short is I was offered a job as a director of a daycare center and it just made sense for the time I am in my life and I accepted that job. So I will be moving from the special ed teacher classroom to running my own daycare center running my own daycare center.

Speaker 2:

That is so exciting and I'm so happy for you. I know that it's going to be a whole different level of stress, a whole different type of job, but I think that you can take a lot of the information that you already have and kind of weave that into your new job, even like your creativity, I think will be excellent for that role.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm really excited. I think that when you have a leader who was a special ed teacher, they just have a more individualized approach to leadership, which I feel is more effective overall.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, you might be wondering what this means for the Ask Us Anything segment, and Paul and I have discussed it, and he still has the same knowledge that he had before he took this new job, and so we would like to continue this series. I feel like it's very successful. I think that the listeners get a lot of valuable information from the two of us, so I think, if you're okay with that, I say that we just continue on as is until we decide it's not.

Speaker 3:

All right, yes, I'm excited for that. I really enjoy coming on this show with you. It's not All right, yes, I'm excited for that.

Speaker 2:

I really enjoy coming on this show with you. Great, all right, so let's get to today's questions. We have Yesenia who has asked I guess she's applying for a special education job and she's asked when applying for jobs, what interview questions should I expect and what questions should I ask? And I think that is just that second part. I think that's so important that a lot of people miss is asking those questions back, because I think if I was interviewing something and they didn't have any questions for me, I think that would be a big red flag. So what questions would you say that she should be kind of preparing for and planning what she might say to those questions, and then some other questions that could just be in the back of her head of what they might ask.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a good question. I think that a couple of things even pre-interview you should ask if there's going to be special ed teachers there present in the interview. I do think that that is a good sign that this is a school where there's some community camaraderie. When, when it's just a principal hiring you by themselves, you know and this isn't always the case, but oftentimes the principal doesn't understand special education and it's more it's a good sign, it's a green flag if they bring in a few of their special ed team, because you're going to have to collaborate with these people quite often and you know they should have a say.

Speaker 3:

If I were the admin of a building, I would want the team that's going to be working with this new employee to have an input on who we hire, because ultimately the whole way the system works you know if you have, if you put a cog in the machine that doesn't fit, it's just going to make a lot of people frustrated and at least if you have a special ed teacher in on the interview, then you have a. Uh, they have some responsibility with what they chose. So if they chose it and it doesn't work well, then they still feel ownership in that and it changes things when, instead of some oversight, just looking in and being like they're hired, we don't care what happens.

Speaker 2:

Here's your new person. Here's your new team member.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, exactly Right.

Speaker 2:

And I think along those same lines. I think probably one of the questions that they're going to ask you is how do you collaborate with other teachers? What kind of personality do you have when you are trying to work as a team?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I definitely think that. I do think that another question that you can expect is how is your behavior management? How do you handle behavior? Because in the special ed classroom you deal with behavior, especially with the push for, uh, least restrictive environment, uh, and their push for, uh, you know, cross categorical versus, like defined classrooms. You're going to have behaviors and it's going to happen and it seems like I've noticed that seems like more and more there's more, um, emotional disturbance, disabilities and whatnot that have been coming into my classroom over the years and they like that whole thing is they have behaviors that they're dealing with. So expect that question and have a really good answer for how you do it. I would recommend preparing a system, like having something in mind of and be able to explain it visually and auditorily to the interviewer.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think some key terms you would want to use there is that you have, like you said, a system or you know, set routines and set procedures in place and you want to be proactive instead of reactive. I think those are some good words that you could use.

Speaker 3:

Yes, adding to that consistency. Drop the word consistency. I'm going to be consistent in my expectations because our students thrive on that structure. I've seen it time and time again. I've had kids that have come in and they're wild and crazy, but then to the end of the year, towards the middle end of the year, they get it, they have the routines and it's less of a fight to get them to do what they need to do because they expect it. They know what's coming.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think another question that you'll probably get asked is how do you differentiate? Because in special education you're going to be working with a lot of different levels. A student might be in fourth or fifth grade, but they're working on a kindergarten level, so you're going to have to know how to differentiate lessons to meet that kid where they are, and so that's probably something you're going to be asked how do you do that? And I think that, again, having a plan, having a good, strong answer for that about how you're basing that instruction upon the IEP goals, I think having that in writing and kind of practicing it would be beneficial to you.

Speaker 3:

Definitely. And in addition to that, they'll probably ask how are you at managing paperwork? You know, because that is a huge aspect of the job of being a special ed teacher, is learning how to manage the very legal, very detailed paperwork for each child.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they might ask something about how do you communicate with parents, how do you plan on building that bridge between the school and the home? And again, you're talking about collaboration. You're talking about being upfront, good communication skills, making sure that you're setting boundaries for yourself and not using your about this on the show before different apps that you can use to communicate with parents. But I imagine that would be something they would ask.

Speaker 3:

Definitely yeah, I think that that covers a good majority of the options. There's also you know could be talking about how would you lead a meeting, because oftentimes special ed teachers lead the.

Speaker 1:

IEP meetings.

Speaker 3:

You could also ask, like what is your, what is your experience with students with disabilities? Like, have you worked with autism? Have you worked with emotional disturbance? Have you worked with ADHD? Like, what, what areas do you have a lot of experience in? Because that does change from school to school and from classroom to classroom.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then, as far as, what questions can you ask? I think like, yeah, like I said, that's very important. You can just ask what is the feel of the school? What does it look like? How are we working with each other? What is the process for PLCs, professional learning communities? Do we collaborate together and build our special education schedule together, or are we each responsible for our own caseload schedules? Just things like that about working with a team that would be good to ask.

Speaker 3:

It should. Also a good question to ask is is there any diversity between how the special ed classrooms run versus general ed classrooms? A lot of admin will send out an email to the all homeroom teachers but then, nine times out of 10, they'll send back oh, not special ed. And I think that that's, first of all, I don't think that's the best way to do it, because everyone should be included, but second of all, like we, it's something that rarely really does happen when you know there's they just a lot of admin don't even think about our approach to things. We have a very different environment, especially for, like, self-contained special ed rooms, like I was in, and that's something that you can ask and kind of turn it on. Them Be like how are you going to keep this from being the case? How are you going to include my class in the general ed activities? How are you going to adapt school-wide things for my class? And I think that that can be, an important because you need that support.

Speaker 3:

You need that support. You need as much support as a gen ed room, if not more, and from the admin, and I think that's important to do that, talking about how they handle discipline at the office level, like, especially when it comes to special ed students. I've had admin that say, oh, we don't discipline special ed students, that's your job. And I'm like, ok, so when, like at what point does that change? You know, I had just this. Last year I had a kid destroy my classroom. He had a laundry list of things that he did wrong. Uh, got suspended for seven days and then unsuspended after two days because he's a special ed student, and I was like, okay, you suspended him for seven, I didn't suspend him for seven days that was your decision and then you're going back on it and you know so it's.

Speaker 3:

I think it's a really important thing, especially nowadays post-covid behaviors are just more rampant, I feel, than they were before. So giving them you know, getting them to answer those tough questions of how do they handle discipline at an office level with special ed students.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a good question to ask. Something that we haven't mentioned yet that's very important is paraprofessionals. How many staff members will you be supervising? What is your role in that supervision? Are you going to be expected to evaluate them? Does the admin evaluate them? What does that look like? And you need to know how many you have, because if you have not enough, that's going to make your job significantly more difficult.

Speaker 2:

So make sure that you're asking those questions about what staff you're going to have. And then also the professional development. What does your future professional development look like? What can you expect from the district that is different from what the general ed teachers are going to get? Because you might need some of the stuff that they are getting, but there's some other things that you need that they don't need. And so make sure and ask what does that process look like?

Speaker 2:

Am I able to seek out my own PD and the district pay for it, or am I just out there on my own, all right? Well, I think those are some really good questions that can get you started and some questions that you can ask to get started. I do have a resource in my TPT store called the interview questions for special ed teachers and it helps you create a resume, has 50 questions and possible answers that you can use to not not memorize and copy, but gives you a place to start in answering those questions and kind of the verbiage that admin might be looking for. And then it kind of indicates the top 10 or top 20 questions that might be asked of you. So I think that's a really good resource that could help you get started on this.

Speaker 3:

One thing that came to mind when you were saying that, first of all, great resource, that's a great resource to use going in. But also go in with the aspect of like, especially lately. Don't feel like you're the underdog getting the job that, like you're going to be offered the job, most likely being a special ed teacher in this day and age.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's not a ton of people knocking on their doors, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Right. So, with that in mind, you be picky. Don't don't let them intimidate you into thinking it's their decision. Ultimately, it's your decision. If you're not comfortable with their answers, be willing to walk away. Be willing to find a school that you feel like is appropriate, because if you don't, you have a chance to be stuck in a toxic environment, and it seems like post-COVID there's been a lot of schools that have turned into that toxic, burnout-ready environment, and I've seen so many special ed teachers last only a year at a school, and that's not what we want. Yeah, that's unfortunate.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I totally agree that in this current job market we are in high demand and I feel like you can pretty much have your pick of where you want to go and you'll get a job, Because even if they don't think they have a job, there might be a position where an interim is covering that spot. And if a certified teacher comes in and applies for the job, I feel like you would get it over an interim and they need you more than you need them. And so, yeah, like Paul said, be very picky about where you're going to work.

Speaker 3:

And I'd recommend, like doing going to at least two or three other schools to interview. Just do that. You know, do that. If it doesn't pan out, you know that's fine. But you have options. You can kind of, just because you have a school that you want to go towards, go to a couple others and just hear them out and see what the difference is, compare them. It's always better to make a decision when there's choices.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, very good, all right. Next question is from Mark and he said I don't understand how to progress, monitor and keep up with all of that data and yeah, I feel that in a deep place in my heart.

Speaker 2:

I feel that I see this everywhere, where they're. In my heart, I feel like having something where you can is like your go-to thing, and it's not that you can't find different resources on the internet, whether they're free or paid. But if you have something all together and say, okay, this is what I'm going to use for fluency, this is what I'm going to use for comprehension, this is what I'm going to use for computation, if you have something all together and then you have a binder that goes with it, where you can write your data down and keep everything in one place, I think that's your best bet.

Speaker 3:

I'm a big proponent of spreadsheets. I love a good spreadsheet, so I love that as a data tracking tool, setting it up with each of my students all in one place so that I can enter in scores. And then really, if you boil it down to its base, even like fluency, even if they don't have a fluency goal, they still need to do the fluency passage, to do the comprehension if they have a reading goal. So what I have done is I give all of my students fluency. I give all of my students fluency, Um, and then some of them I do the additional step of the, the comprehension, and it's just having a passage. Uh, aims web has been used before. Uh, fast bridge. Uh, there's several different programs out there. I'm guessing your school probably has one Um. If they don't, they should get one and they have ways to set up progress monitoring on there and just make it small, incremental steps. So like, for example, I just have it in my schedule that I actually worked it out to where, when my kids go to the library, I take three back. Whenever they go to the library, I take three back, progress, monitor them and then send them afterwards, and then every three or four weeks. I've gotten through everyone and it's a monthly progress monitoring that I have a data for that is consistent and it shows their progression monthly and it's during that defined time I just send with my, my paraprofessional. They go to the library. There's a certified librarian, so it's not like they're not unsupervised. But then I can take those few smaller settings and do that and that's what I did and it works really well because I was able to do it.

Speaker 3:

And then, alternatively, if I ever missed a time with a student, well then we use those unstructured days. That happened way too often in the education system. You know where there's a half day or or uh, something's going on in the assembly that takes up a good portion of the day and they can't push into their gen ed rooms because of some reason or another, or a field trip, or blah, blah, blah. Those days are great makeup days, Designate that that is. You know whenever that happens and unfortunately it happens far more often than it should.

Speaker 3:

At least in my school it did. So use that as this is a progress monitoring day and that can be very helpful in getting the data. But the overwhelm I think happens when people like okay, I have a meeting for a kid. I don't have any data. I'm going to just barrage them with every test. They're then worn out, they're not doing their best. But I think that it's important for not only you to have that data consistent, or consistent time over time, not just all at once, but it's also good for the kid because they can also see the progression and see the improvement.

Speaker 3:

And I can tell you progress monitoring wise. I reward the heck out of the kids who improve, like that is what I, that is what I reward. When they read an extra 12 words, I'm over the moon and they get excited about it and they're excited about the next reading. Or if they don't make it, I'll just oh, you're so close. And then they work harder the next month because they know I want to beat that score and I always have an award associated with beating their scores. Never. It's never about where they're at grade level. It's always about if they improve. If their score improves from their last reading, then they get their reward and that's about all I reward in my room. I have privileges that they get, but in terms of actual tangible rewards, most of it is only for improvement. On progress monitoring, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I think if your goals are set up correctly, your kids are going to. They're all going to reach that. So I don't want it to. I don't want to sound like there's some kids that never get rewarded for their improvement because they're low. No, the IEP goal is put in place to make sure that they are going to be successful. You don't write a goal for something that is absolutely unreachable If they're reading at a first grade level.

Speaker 3:

having a fifth grade level fluency goal not practical. But they can still improve at the first grade level. It's not hard and that's the case. All of my kids improve.

Speaker 2:

They all get better, they all get rewarded. But it's just adopted goal goalbook in the last couple of years and that has a ton of stuff. So you said AIMS web there's. There's a lot of different ones out there. Like you said, if your district doesn't have something like that and even if they do, there are some there are some holes that I found, that you might not find exactly what you're looking for, but have some type of system in place, a schedule of when you're going to give it.

Speaker 2:

And I was thinking about this a lot last week and I feel like weekly check ins are a good.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you said monthly, but I was thinking even like an exit ticket system and I actually started creating that on dbt, because having just a weekly pic, snapshot or picture of what where that kit is, and it's just a few questions here and there and you keep all of that data and then you have it all at the end for the IEP meeting and it's all centrally located.

Speaker 2:

You have it there and you're not taking the risk of a kid being gone on that one day that you choose to progress monitor, You're doing it instead every week, so you're going to catch them at some point, and then you don't risk the possibility of them having a bad day. You know, not trying or just can't remember what that skill is and not being able to, you know, show success with it. So I think progress monitoring on a more consistent basis is actually a good thing, and so I started creating that exit ticket progress monitoring system on TPT and it's just in the beginning works, but it's a growing bundle. So if you want to get that, I will share that in the show notes.

Speaker 3:

On that note, I think it's important to recognize that it is overwhelming, especially if you haven't done it. So start at a manageable consistency. Make it consistent, but make it manageable for you, and then you'll get more confidence and you'll you'll see the benefits more. So that's what got me into doing it so often is that that I just saw the kids be excited about it and and. So if it is like, don't try to go weekly if you've currently not done it at all try to go weekly.

Speaker 3:

If you've currently not done it at all, right, try to bring it. You know, do it quarterly first, make sure you you're able to do it quarterly and then work on monthly and then work on weekly. It's, it's, it's a stretching teaching practice that really you have to get to that point and it's it takes a couple of years because I, when I first started, I was right where you were, mark. I was just like I don't know what to do. I'm just trying to stay alive and keep these kids from killing each other. How do I also test them and do data? You know, get data for their IPS. But then now, you know, several years in, I have strategies, I have things that work, I find those times that work and it creates a stretching opportunity for teachers.

Speaker 3:

And then the other side of that is when you're creating goals, keep it in mind with like, if what their goal is, try to maybe work as a, as a school or even a district to find like.

Speaker 3:

Well, what programs do we use to progress monitor? How can we phrase the goal to fit in there without saying this progress monitoring tool, because you know you can't be that specific, but like, because if they move or whatever, but make it in a way that it can be the goals, can be, can utilize the tool that exists and so that the kids have consistency, not from just you know, in this classroom, but year to year, they kind of have the same trajectory find that tool list, the tool in the IEP, as, like, this is the tool I use, not in the goal, but just as a little note, this is the tool I use, this is where they are at, this is the exact, you know diagnostic of where they're at, so that the next person is not like, well, I don't know what three frogs out of five means, you know, but like, oh, this, they use this tool in this way, you know, even even attaching like a probe, an example probe or something, so that they know what to look for in next year. I think can be very valuable.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I totally agree. Start, start small, don't put too much pressure on yourself. You're just you're checking goals, you're checking progress on the goals, and that's that's basically what you're doing. You can still teach other things, but you still want to have some type of system where you're checking to make sure that they're making progress on that goal. Like Paul said, do it as minimal as you need to in the beginning and then move up to a different system later on. Perfect advice, all right, paul. Well, that kind of wraps up our questions for today. Thank you for having another great discussion with me.

Speaker 3:

Yes, this was really good I got. You could tell I got a little bit passionate there at the end. Sorry.

Speaker 2:

Passion is good in our field, all right. Well, good luck starting your new job and I will see you in July.

Speaker 3:

All right, sounds good.