Serving Students with Special Needs

Serving Students with Special Needs provides administrators with essential knowledge about the requirements for special education services, as well as practical steps to ensure legal compliance and appropriate services for students with special needs. Each chapter includes basic information followed by specific suggestions or steps. This brief, easily applied, and highly practical guide covers: Instruction, including differentiated instruction and universal design for learning Assessment, including accommodations and modifications and response to intervention (RTI) Developing multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) Student progress monitoring and using large data sets to inform decision making Mediation, due process hearings, and litigation Systems management and positive behavioral intervention supports (PBIS)Scenarios are presented along with suggested responses and solutions. Serving Students with Special Needs has been specifically developed to provide administrators with practical suggestions to quickly and effectively implement appropriate special education practices.

"Exceptionally informed and informative, ‘Serving Students with Special Needs: A Practical Guide for Administrators’ is an ideal and comprehensive instructional guide that is remarkably ‘user friendly’ in organization and presentation, making it very highly recommended for academic library reference collections and as a School Administration curriculum textbook. An invaluable read for anyone charged with administration responsibilities for special needs education programs preschool through highschool." – Midwest Book Review"Serving Students with Special Needs reflects Dr. Tom E. C. Smith’s extensive background in special education and educational administration and provides timely, informative, and authoritative resources for school administrators on inclusive educational programs for students with disabilities. This very practical guide addresses legal regulations and issues related to special education, instructional considerations essential to successful inclusion programs, and the management of school wide programs that support such students. Smith's book makes a major contribution to preparing administrators for the education of students with special needs."- Ed Polloway, Rosel H. Schewel Chair of Education, Lynchburg College, USA"We are at a tipping point with regard to the teaching of students with disabilities, where quality, inclusive education is not simply a dream but a potential reality. Holding the key to this future are principals and administrators, whose role in achieving quality education for students with disabilities is so critical and yet so often overlooked. Serving Students with Special Needs provides an important resource—and Tom E. C. Smith is uniquely qualified to write such a resource—to enable administrators to take a central role in enabling all students to learn, and to turn the key toward a brighter, more positive future."- Michael L. Wehmeyer, Ph.D., Professor of Special Education, Director of Beach Center on Disability, and Director of Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities, University of Kansas, USA

Tom E.C. Smith is Dean and University Professor of Special Education at the University of Arkansas, USA. He has authored or co-authored 32 books and revised editions. Dr. Smith served as the Executive Director of the Division on Developmental Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) from 1994 until 2013, and three terms on the President’s Committee on Persons with Intellectual Disabilities.