Melanie Dean

Course SED 560 75

Legal Issues and Procedures in Special Education
08/27/17

Interviewer- Melanie Dean

LEA- Mr. Jason Lochner
Principal at Harrold Middle School

For my special education interview I spoke with Mr. Jason Lochner, the principal
at Harrold Middle School in the Hempfield Area School District. In regards the HMS
and their RTI/RTII process, Mr. Lochner said there is not a solid plan in place at the
secondary level. He said that beyond the classroom, teachers should be
differentiating instruction as Tier 1 interventions for struggling students. Mr.
Lochner said he has been in attendance at an IEP meeting where there was an
advocate present. He the advocates role was to be the strong communication bridge
between the school and the parents. The advocate helped to make sense of the
school process for the parents. He said he found it to be extremely helpful and put
everyone at ease, including the parents. In his past experiences, Mr. Lochner said
there was many times where a parent disagreed with something the IEP team
decided. He said the goal at that point was to try to find common ground and use
data to emphasize the school and IEP teams position. He said it was necessary to
show the importance of their position. In most cases he said they were successful
but if parents disagree with the IEP team or decisions made, he said they usually
continue to gather more data. He said the most critical section of the IEP in his
opinion is the academic/behavior/physical adaptations and accomodations
sections, as well as the SDIs. Some examples of modifications he has used to benefit
a student in his school are modifying assignments, chunking, highlighting, and
helping to ease the anxiety of student. He said these were the same examples he
would give for accomodations in his school. I learned a lot from this interview about
how special education works at the middle school level, what some typically used
accomodations are for this level, and the importance of parent involvement in the
IEP process.