Dear Ms. Alvarez,
I am applying for the Special Education Teacher position at Bellview Middle School, posted last week. I have spent twelve years across self-contained, resource and co-taught inclusion settings, and the detail in your posting that made me write is the move to full inclusion in grades six through eight.
I currently carry a caseload of eighteen students in grades six through eight, and I write and defend my own IEPs rather than handing them to a coordinator. Last year fourteen of my students met or exceeded their annual reading goals, up from nine — the change was moving progress monitoring from monthly to fortnightly so a stalled goal surfaced in October rather than March.
Bellview's transition to full inclusion is why I applied rather than renewing where I am. I have been the general-education teacher's first call through that shift twice now, and I know how much of it is won in planning periods rather than in the IEP meeting.
I hold an Illinois Professional Educator License as a Learning Behavior Specialist I, with Nonviolent Crisis Intervention certification and an Assistive Technology Applications certificate.
I would welcome the chance to talk about how co-teaching blocks are structured at Bellview and what the caseload will look like next year. I am glad to meet whenever suits your team.
Sincerely, Yolanda Pierce