How to get my SpEd coordinator to level with me?

Hi all!

I'm a gen-ed teacher (HS ELA), and I'm working with a student who has much more specific needs than I've seen in a long time. In short, this boy is pretty low-IQ, is not a native English speaker (and is also not fluent in a first language -- military family, you get it), and has a whole lot of learned helplessness. He won't do any homework at all, for example.

I've called a couple of "all hands" meetings this year, trying to iron out our approach. Normally, I'd be frustrated to be asked to develop a special side-along curriculum, but this kid genuinely needs it. We're reading some pretty tough texts (*Night*, some Kafka, etc) and the documentation lists this kid's reading level as 5th grade. Asking him to independently read Kafka is like asking me to read something in Korean. I would get nothing whatsoever out of the experience, so I just wouldn't do it, you know?

The problem is that I feel like our meetings are focused on three things:

1. What the philosophy behind educating this student (and all students) is. 2. What our legal responsibilities are. 3. What some very vague and generalized options are for support ("Have you tried giving him a vocab list?")

None of those is useful at all. I am vaguely interested in the philosophy, but during a meeting like that I'm looking for actual answers I can bring to class tomorrow. The legalities are important, but I get it. The third is almost bordering on insulting, and I don't know how to respond to those suggestions without implying that I think the person offering them is an idiot.

My impression is that the student can't fail the class. You know what I mean? That, technically in some grand sense (see point 1) it's theoretically possible, but realistically? No. He's going to pass and get a diploma.

But they don't want to just say that so that we can then work with that as a given to figure out what we actually *should* be doing to give this kid a useful education. I've suggested some low/high books that I think he'd like, instead of the class text, I've shown them some samples of units I think could actually help this kid (how to read instructions, how to write emails to people in authority, etc), and I've offered to use my free block to meet with the kid, switching him out of the ELA class and into that period, so that he still has his study hall.

The answer to all of it is no. So, I'm stuck watching this kid not read anything (and why would he when comprehending it is next to impossible?), not write anything (how can he write on texts he didn't read, addressing prompts that are beyond him?), and get passing grades for the not reading and writing.

I feel like we're failing this poor kid. No, I **know** we are.

How can I get my SpEd folks to level with me? We're operating out of different realities! He has three different people who "help" him with school work, and they overlap! Sometimes para A will work with him on his ELA homework. Sometimes teacher B will help with a test in pull-out. Without consistency, I really have no idea where the answers come from when I get the work back, you know? Everyone always says, "Oh I just gave a little guidance, and he came up with all of this," but I read the work and then talk to the kid about the books, and he has no clue what the book is about in even casual conversation, so how is he claiming that, "Wiesel's experience represents the experience of all the Jews who were dehumanized by the Nazi's efforts"? That's a direct quote from a long answer essay question "he" wrote.

Again, I'm irritated by the nonsense, but mostly just feeling like this kid is getting screwed. If we gave him a book he could access, we could start teaching him to take responsibility for his follow-through, and could build on that to get him to see himself as a learner.

Tips, please. What would you say if a colleague asked you to level with him about a student like this?