When New York City special-needs teacher Marie Cornicelli learned in March that the city’s 1.1 million public-school students would be migrating to remote learning, she expected the foray into “crazy, unknown and unfamiliar territory” to be a difficult one.
“I wondered if my students would be able to do the work well at home with the level of support that they’re used to,” said Ms. Cornicelli, who has been an educator for 15 years.
Now, with a month of remote teaching behind her due to the coronavirus outbreak, the behavior-management specialist at Staten Island Pre-K to eighth grade school P 373R, which has an enrollment of 640 special-needs students, says the transition has been almost seamless, thanks to careful execution and strong parental involvement.
“When you work with students with disabilities…you work with the families, the siblings and the home-care givers,” she said. “It takes a team.”