Dominique McClain teaches an inclusive 4th grade classroom of 18 students in a rural, low-income school district. Seven students have IEPs for academic support and one has a speech IEP, while three more receive assistance through the SAT program. McClain co-teaches with support staff during math and reading to help students with IEP goals. While student abilities varied widely at first, they all made progress, though the achievement gap widened over the year according to benchmark tests.

1. Dominique McClain, NBCT
4TH Grade
Hancock County

2. I teach an inclusionary classroom in a low income rural elementary school.
My current grade level is fourth grade. There are 18 students in my classroom. The
students are ranging in age from nine years old to twelve years old. Two students
are Hispanic and the other 16 are all Caucasian. The primary language is English;
none of my students are exposed to any other language.
Number of students
Hispanic Caucasian

3. In my inclusionary classroom there are seven academic orientated individualized educations plans
(IEP), and one for only speech. Along with these IEP’s, I have three SAT’s, (student assisted team). Students in
the SAT program students receive extra intervention in areas of weaknesses. The other eight students are typical
or working on current grade level.
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IEP
SAT
Typical
Number of Students
Number of Students

4. My role in the classroom is to provide instruction for my students in all subject areas. During math and reading
instruction, I have a co-teacher that provides support for my students with IEP’s. The co-teacher is in my room for 30 minutes
during math and pulls students out for 20 minutes for reading. The co-teacher and I follow the goals in the IEP in order to
meet their individual specific educational concerns. Along with my co-teacher, it is our responsibility to ensure that the goals
are being worked toward and once the accomplishment has been met, new ones are then set that is attainable.

5. In my school we also have a title one teacher who comes in and co-teaches with me 20
minutes a day, five days a week. Also there is a math interventionist they that works with my
students three days a week for a half an hour. I usually send my students who are excelling in math,
since that is the smaller group in my room.

6. In my classroom my students learning abilities were very wide spread. They were at the beginning of the school
year according to STAR in reading, my students ranged from 1.2- 5.2 G.E, the last benchmark it was 3.3-9.4. Although my
students all made growth, the gap widen. That was the same trend for math, at the beginning of the year STAR’s G.E ranged
from 2.2-4.7 and the last benchmark it was 3.5-7+. My students faced many challenged but they worked very hard and made
progress.
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Reading Math
Chart Title
Beginning Middle End

7. “It Takes A Team”