Collaborative Consultation: The San Juan Unified School District Project

Critically needed in the area of school consultation are field-based, evaluation reports of outcomes of actual implementation of school consultation. This article is such a report, describing how the Resource/Consulting Teacher model was implemented with resource specialists in a pilot program in Sacramento, California. We describe: (a) the procedures necessary to bring about such an implementation, (b) the district itself, and (c) the training efforts made to prepare the resource specialists for the new role. Emphasis is placed on how 13 resource specialists formed a collaborative working group among themselves, as well as their efforts to engage in collaborative consultation with classroom teachers and building administrators to assist certain special education students and certain students at risk for school failure. Preliminary evaluation data are included that describe the progress of individual students and groups of elementary students (N = 79) who received specialized remedial reading instruction, and individual students who received intervention to increase appropriate social behaviors. The specialized reading and behavior instruction was provided to special education students in resource rooms and general classrooms; the at-risk student instruction was in general education programs. As a result, 29 special education students were mainstreamed back into their general education reading classes, 7 students were nearly ready to be returned, and 9 students were totally dismissed from the special education program and reinstated as general education students.