Special Ed/ Content area techer interaction

I don’t teach secondary, but from what I know, secondary resource teachers are completely overwhelmed. They may each service rougly 30 students and they can be in any grade, 9-12 and have IEPs for any subject with any and every modification and accomodation. This can mean they must interface with easily 20+ teachers, perhaps 40 or more. Consider how much interaction you think time permits to happen, given that teachers teach 5/6 periods everyday themselves? Mighty little. Most happens via the resource teaching placing notes in teachers’ boxes.

In my son’s school (he’s in 8th grade), they have team meetings for an hour for each grade once a week where the resource teacher is present and that’s one consistent occasion where the special ed and content teachers interact. In core classes (ie, English, Science, Math) they try to schedule most of the LD kids together, and will often have the resource teacher there as an aid on a regular basis. This school has ~200 kids in each grade, with one teacher per core subject per grade; ~10% are in special ed. There is one resource teacher per grade also, and typically 2 LD resource classes a day per grade. There are also 2 special ed teachers that handle the more severely disabled children in self-contained classes. There is plenty of interaction between the resource and regular ed teachers, however, that doesn’t always translate into the regular ed teacher doing what’s been asked!

In my experience ias a special ed. teacher, t all depends on the regular ed. teachers. I have sat for an hour each day during prep with some teachers and even stayed after school for longer with other teachers. On the flip side, I have never interacted with some regular ed. teachers until I walk in their classrooms and find out whats going on then.
Hope this helps.