Mt. Pleasant provides special education plan for review

MT. PLEASANT — Ever five years, school districts in Iowa are required to submit a Special Education Delivery Plan that details how the district provides special education services throughout the district.

Mt. Pleasant School’s Special Education Delivery Plan renewal is due this fall.

So Katie Gavin, the curriculum director for the Mt. Pleasant Community School District, put together a committee of general education teachers, special education teachers, administrators, and even parents of students with IEP’s to put together and revise their plan of action for special education in the district.

The committee was tasked with putting together the special education delivery plan for the district, and they decided that they would make sure that students would be receive the least restrictive education possible, meaning that the student will have an education plan that best suits their specific needs.

For example if a student is in need of speech pathology then the student will receive that help but will remain in a general education classroom for most of the day.

“We want students to be in the least restrictive environment possible; however, we do have students with greater needs and having their learning occur in the general education classroom isn’t going to meet their needs to close that gap,” Gavin said.

The goal was to get the plan in terms for parents to understand and to help students get the best education possible from the district.

“We know that students have struggles in learning or behavior, that doesn’t mean they need to struggle for the rest of their lives to be successful people,“ Gavin said.

“That’s really what makes kids successful in our community, so we want to structure it to meet their needs as early as possible. They make the gains that they can to be successful outside of school,” she added.

The plan is available for review on the district website at mtpcsd.org. After 30 days of public review of the plan, it will go before the school board twice for approval. Once approved by the school board it will be reviewed and approved by the Great Prairie Area Education Agency and the Iowa Department of Education in that order.