Including All Families: Special Education at Muir

Muir has a fantastic special education program! We are an inclusion program, and we believe every child deserves an excellent education every day. We also respect and celebrate different learning styles, and we believe that having children with different needs in our classrooms enriches all of us.

Muir has 2 full-time Special Education teachers and 4 Instructional Assistants who teach in our Resource and Access programs. We also have a Speech Language Pathologist, an Occupational Therapist, and a Physical Therapist who provide additional services.

The Resource and Access Programs provide two levels of support for children with special academic or social emotional needs at Muir:

Resource – R esource services are intended to provide specially designed instruction to students with mild to moderate intensity in their special education instructional needs. These services support students who benefit from spending most of their instructional time in general education settings with targeted support. But, services may be provided in any setting, based on the individual IEP.

Access – Access services are intended to provide specially designed instruction to students with more intensive academic and functional special education needs. These services support students who are able to make progress on their IEP goals while spending most of their instructional time, including specially designed instruction, in general education settings with a range of supports. Because adult-student staffing ratios are higher, students receive slightly more support than is provided under the resource model. This program has allowed us to provide additional supports to students already attending Muir and we have also been able to welcome new families qualifying for this program to the Muir community.

If you have questions about our programs or you want ideas for talking with your children about different learning styles and challenges, please let us know. We want everyone to feel included and comfortable at John Muir Elementary.