All Student Teachers Should Learn SST Procedures

SST = Student Support Team. Different regions probably have different vernacular but ultimately it's all the same. The Student Support Team is the system schools have in place to assist struggling students that don't have IEP's. These are students that do not LEGALLY require accommodations, but it's pretty obvious that they need the extra support WITHIN the classroom. Everyone assumes that teachers have experience documenting these things when most of them actually don't. And the ones that do, aren't doing it EFFECTIVELY. 

I can definitely point to a handful of students that needed to go through the SST process but they wound up slipping through the cracks. IEP's are required by law. Don't perform the accommodations you can be sued and can lose your license. SST's are installed locally at the school level, and at the team level. The teachers recognize a deficit and begin using strategies to close that academic gap and MONITOR how those strategies affect the student's learning. I didn't know what that was while I was doing my student teaching. I didn't know how to monitor their progress, where to get the forms from, how to complete the forms, who to send them to, where to store them, how often to review them, who to review them with, how long to keep them, and so on. It's a CRITICAL component of the learning process and should definitely be addressed at every grade level meeting but too often it's not. It's week two and I've already got 2 and maybe a 3rd possible that could be eligible for the SST process. If our job is to put students first, we need to consistent with that even if it means more paperwork in the process.