Education support refers to a broad array of services that help students feel nurtured within their learning environment. It can include accommodations like those found in a 504 plan or IEP.
Education support professionals are a vital part of our public school system. From paraeducators and administrative assistants to custodians and cafeteria workers, ESPs are the backbone of our schools.
Eligibility
Education support services are often able to provide financial assistance for tuition, books and supplies. In some cases, they may also be able to help pay for other costs related to attending school such as transportation assistance or childcare expenses.
Eligibility for educational support can be determined by checking with your college or career school’s financial aid office to see if you’re eligible to receive funding under their program. There are a number of criteria that you’ll need to meet in order to be eligible for certain types of assistance including:
If you are the spouse or child of a Veteran or service member who died, is missing in action or has a permanent and total service-connected disability, you may be eligible to receive education benefits under the Survivors’ and Dependents’ Educational Assistance (DEA) program. You can find more information on the DEA program and eligibility requirements here. To establish your eligibility, you’ll need to submit an E-App.
Accommodations
Accommodations are tools that adjust how students learn or how they’re assessed, giving them the opportunity to achieve the same results as their peers. However, accommodations should not be confused with modifications or strategies.
Modifications or instructional strategies are designed to teach a student specific skills or knowledge that will enable them to overcome the barriers presented by their disability. Accommodations, on the other hand, provide tools to level the playing field by removing obstacles that would otherwise prevent a student from learning.
While it may seem counterintuitive, accommodations can actually boost performance and assuage test anxiety in students without disabilities as well as those with disabilities. In fact, a famous “natural experiment” illustrating this was the 2019 college admissions scandal in which wealthy parents faked disabilities to receive accommodations on their children’s tests (for analysis of the incident see Lovett, 2020). Because of this, schools need to be cautious about how they deploy accommodations.
Supports in the classroom
Some students require more than the basics to be successful in school. These students are often helped through a framework called a Multi-Tiered System of Supports, or MTSS. This framework helps educators identify struggling students and gives them the academic and behavioral support they need to meet their goals.
Teachers use various classroom-based supports to help students feel confident and safe in the learning process. These can include cues from body language, visuals, or acting that show students what is expected of them. They can also be scaffolding strategies that give students a step-by-step way to learn, such as a Think-Aloud or an Inquiry-Based lesson.
To help schools with their continuum of supports, we have a number of resources available to download. These tools can be used to reflect upon and refine a school’s structures and processes around MTSS. For example, one of the tools includes an organizer created by the team at Beaverlodge Regional High School, that provides a clear overview and explanation for key Tier 2 supports.
Supports outside of the classroom
Educators know that students look to them not only as knowledgeable experts, but also as sources of inspiration, guidance and support. This extends beyond the classroom in the form of advising and mentoring students, connecting them with university support systems and participating in extracurricular activities such as study groups.
Outside the classroom, there’s inherently more competition for a student’s attention. Whether it’s an insect buzzing around their head, a rumbling car nearby or the pull of click bait online, teachers need to be aware of the potential for learning distractions and find ways to combat them.
One way is through integrated student supports, or wraparound services that seek to address barriers to learning from a variety of sources, including homelessness, mental health issues and food insecurity. These are often delivered by onsite coordinators like Green, who act as hallway cheerleaders and listening ear to students, while implementing schoolwide programming to boost attendance and persistence. Integrated supports are on the rise, thanks to the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act’s encouragement of them and the ability to secure federal funds to pay for them.