4 Strategies to Facilitate Collaboration Across Special Education Teams
By creating effective systems, special education teachers can set themselves, general education teachers, and students up for success.
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As a special educator, you may have run into something like this before: A general education teacher stops you in the hall to let you know that one of your students failed a quiz because the teacher didn’t know that the student needed the test to be read aloud. Or maybe it’s a paraprofessional running up to you frantically because she can’t find a student’s behavior plan and doesn’t know how to access the document in your school system. Or maybe it’s a parent calling you upset because her child wasn’t provided extended time on a writing assignment.
If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone—special education teachers are builders of invisible infrastructure. We design and maintain systems that deliver vital information across stakeholders, and we work to transform fragmented supports into connected and collaborative teams centered on student success. But without thoughtful, effective systems for communication and collaboration, things can break down.
I’ve come up with four strategies that have helped me set up effective systems for sharing information and enhancing and monitoring communication and collaboration.
1. Map the student’s special education team
After receiving your caseload and reading the individualized education programs (IEPs) or 504s, you’ll create a map of all the different team members who will be supporting your students and what those services look like in terms of frequency, time, location, and impact. Team members can include general education teachers, paraprofessionals, clinicians, and other service providers. It is also important to include other stakeholders who might provide input, need progress updates, or share positive connections with the student on your map, like coaches, support staff, or peer buddies.
By creating this visual, you can better understand the student’s support team and begin building effective pathways of communication. It can also be helpful to work with the student or previous teachers to identify supportive adults and peers.
2. Develop a centralized secure digital support hub
Once you have a good understanding of all the different team members, supports, and services, it’s time to build a centralized secure digital support hub for the student’s team. You can think of this as like a mini-command center for each student. I use our district’s Google Drive as my hub and ensure that folders and documents are secure and shared only with those who need access.
While starting to build the hub, I have three goals in mind: Keep it simple, clear, and easy to navigate. I create a folder that will house everything. I usually label this folder with the school year, grade levels, and my last name, like this: SY25-26_7th-8th_Ellison Caseload. I also color-code the folder so it stands out and star it as important. Inside the main folder, I create individualized folders per student, and inside those folders, I create folders for all the team members who support and service that student.
It can be helpful to create a short video, 30 seconds to a minute, and clear step-by-step instructions, showing how to navigate the hub, labeling those pieces “Start Here” inside the main folder. These directions can help ensure that all team members know how to access the hub.
3. Plan Strategically for What Goes in the Folder and What Stays Out
It can be tempting to put everything about a student into a folder, but it is important to prioritize what is most essential for each team member. I like to have proactive meetings with each team member during the first weeks of school to discuss our roles, what supports and services we are providing the student, and how and where those supports and services overlap.
For example, when meeting with a general education teacher, we would cocreate instructional planning documents and student progress monitoring tools, such as shared digital trackers or anecdotal logs, that would go inside the student’s folder.
When meeting with clinicians, such as a social worker, speech-language pathologist, or occupational therapist, I would focus on the student’s goals and how the services would be scheduled and delivered. We would cocreate shared logs, trackers, and check-in agendas for documenting progress.
With a paraprofessional, I would review the student’s schedule, their IEP goals, and the specific supports the student needed throughout the day. All of this information would live in the folder. We would go over key routines, transitions, and behavioral supports and cocreate an accessible data-collection system in the folder for them to log observations, behavior, and communication.
4. Connect with the team throughout the year
Special education teachers can’t just give out information and hope for the best—instead, they need to frequently check in with students, teachers, and other stakeholders to make sure everyone is getting what they need. I schedule check-ins with the team on a monthly basis and use the time to assess our shared documentation and collaboration methods, reflect on student progress, and review communication with other stakeholders. Depending on the partnership, you may not need to meet as often—the important part is to take the time to reflect together and keep talking to ensure that what you’re doing is working and has a positive impact on the student’s success.
Building an infrastructure for students takes time and collaboration. But it will allow all stakeholders to be on the same page and better set up students for success.