SPECIAL NOTE: This past week CASE Executive Director has had some email issues. If you emailed lpurcell@casecec.org and did not receive an answer, please resend that email. We apologize for any inconvenience this technical problem might have caused you. We pride ourselves in excellent customer service and we deeply regret the "down time" this past week!
Many if not most of you are on holiday today for Memorial Day. Memorial Day in the US is observed on the last Monday of May. It was formerly known as Decoration Day and commemorates all men and women, who have died in military service for the United States. One of the traditions for the holiday is to visit cemeteries and place flags on the graves of the military casualties. We are “celebrating” the lives these people lived and so selflessly gave for the service to their country. Because of the when it occurs, many people use the day not to celebrate those lives but to celebrate the start of summer. While I know we all need that day to celebrate, I hope you will spend some time to think about and tell the "younger folks" just what the holiday really means!
Speaking of celebrating... Time is running out on nominating a "new" special education administrator for the "G" Award! What a great way of celebrating a new career, a great new leader, and most importantly our field! If we don't have great new administrators coming on board every year who will continue the wonderful work we all have been doing these last 30+ years? Let's celebrate the newcomers and maybe encourage others to step on that career ladder! Click here for more information on the "G" Award ... and special thanks to the Gersh Academy for sponsoring this award!
Celebrate our profession by advocating for your students and programs in D.C. this July! What better way to celebrate all the amazing things your staff and students have accomplished this year than by telling their stories up on the Hill to the new Congress? We need a team from EVERY state in order to really make a statement! As you enter into your Senator or Representative's office, think what kind of impression you will make when you can say there are teams visiting their Senator's and Representative's offices from all 50 states! The reviews we get back on the July Legislative Summit are always stellar. It is not uncommon to hear such comments as "Best PD event I have ever participated; Money well spent; I will be back; and I can't wait to bring more folks with me next year!" Though we say this every year, it IS critical for us to have every state represented! Don't miss out on this amazing opportunity! Go to the CASE website or straight to the Summit website for more information and to register now!
Last Week's Poll asked "What is your biggest 'stressor' in May?" First place was not a surprise, at 40 percent of those who completing the poll saying completing paperwork was their biggest stressor in May! Second place at 27 percent was working on the budget for the upcoming year. Third place was a tie at 13 percent between staffing for the upcoming year and IEPs. Last place at 7 percent was dealing with student behavior issues. All of these issues are very real and time consuming. Thank you for all you do to deal with these. We celebrate you as the close of school and all the various issues pile up and you deal with each and every one of them!
We are excited to continue our series on technology and its implications for educating students with disabilities. We are fortunate to have Drs. Maya Israel and Matt Marino present a webinar entitled "Supporting Content Learning with Technology for Students with Disabilities" on Wednesday, May 27, from 1-2 p.m. Eastern Time.
This interactive webinar will include discussion on the concepts of assistive technology, general and content-specific technologies for use during instruction and assessment, how to align instructional technologies with the UDL framework, and technology considerations during IEP development. Additionally, it will include implications for teacher education.
Safe, Healthy and Ready to Learn is a consensus report on children exposed to violence, and explores policy solutions to help children, families, and communities heal and thrive. The report was developed in partnership with leaders, including CEC, throughout the health, education, justice and child development field.
Released annually, by the Alliance of Excellent Education, America's Promise Alliance, Civil Enterprises, and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, the report shows detailed progress toward the Grad Nation goal of a national on-time graduation rate of 90 percent by 2020.
The Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center and Early Learning Challenge Technical Assistance Program partnered to create a compilation of professional development resources to support inclusive practices. These materials focus on resources that can be used to prepare personnel to serve young children with disabilities in settings with their typically developing peers, which is a requirement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are proposing to release a policy statement on inclusion of young children with disabilities in high-quality inclusive early childhood programs. It is the purpose of this blog (blog link below) to request comments on the proposed statement.
Chris Martin has been teaching creative writing to children with autism for more than 10 years. Children with autism often struggle in school because of their restricted interests (usually characterized by one very intense passion), but Martin has found a way to turn this characteristic into a vehicle for learning. "These restricted interests are often portrayed negatively," he writes. "In that they limit the student's ability to access a wider range of interests."
The Obama administration wants to see more kids with disabilities — no matter how significant — participating in classrooms alongside their typically-developing peers. The U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services are jointly seeking public comment this week on a draft policy statement encouraging greater inclusion for young children with disabilities. While the majority of preschoolers with disabilities attended general early childhood programs as of 2013, more than half of these children received their special education and related services in segregated environments, the Education Department said.
The U.S. Supreme Court followed the advice of President Barack Obama's administration and declined to take up a case involving an important interpretation of federal special education law. The court last fall had asked for the administration's views in the case, Ridley School District v. D.R. (No. 13-1547). The administration came back this spring with a brief saying the case was not a good one for review by the justices. The Pennsylvania school district, joined by several school groups, had asked the high court to interpret an aspect of the "stay-put" provision of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. That provision means a child stays in his or her current educational placement during administrative and legal proceedings over a disputed education plan. That often can mean the child will stay in a private school placement, with a public school district footing the bill during lengthy proceedings.
One in 10 children and teens has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to a new government report. That number has remained relatively steady since 2007, according to government estimates. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report offers a snapshot of how many children and teens currently have ADHD. However, it's tough to draw conclusions from this data about the reasons for the findings, said lead author Patricia Pastor, a researcher in the CDC's Office of Analysis and Epidemiology.
School hasn't been easy for one Colorado teenager with severe dyslexia. "You can see a little bit of the pain that it's caused him over the years," says Lissa True, as she reflects on her 18-year-old son Anthony's upcoming high school graduation. "He's got a few scars, but the bigger emotion is just being incredibly proud of his accomplishment and looking forward to the future and to life where he is going to be exceptionally successful, even though in school some people may look at him and say he wasn't as successful. Not an honor roll student, but you know what, that's OK with us." Her son will be studying diesel mechanics at a trade school following graduation.
The percentage of students who reported being bullied or cyberbullied reached a record low in 2013, but female students are still victimized at higher rates, according to new data from the Department of Education. The department released the results of the latest School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which showed that in 2013, the percentage of students ages 12-18 who reported being bullied dropped to 21.5 percent. That's down from 27.8 percent in 2011, and a high of 31.7 percent in 2007. The percentage of students who reported being cyberbullied also fell to 6.9 percent in 2013, down from 9 percent in 2011.
Anya Kamenetz, a contributor for NPR, writes: "Our story last week about the connection between ADHD, movement and thinking struck a nerve with readers. We reported on a small study in which students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder performed better on memory tasks when they were allowed to spin and move around in a swiveling chair. We got hundreds of comments, tweets and emails. Even the CEO of Donors Choose, a fundraising site for teachers, wrote in to say that there are 1,455 projects with the key word 'fidget' on his site. More than 1,000 teachers requested something called a 'Hokki Stool' — a backless seat that allows kids to sit and wiggle."
Children with ADHD and learning disabilities often have trouble remembering and retaining information taught in class. To improve their memory skills, help them create links and visual, auditory and conceptual associations between bits of information.
Peter P., 17, spent two months sleeping on his school’s roof after becoming homeless in April. When administrators at Dominguez High School learned of his situation, they didn't help with essential services or support. They suspended him and turned him over to the police for trespassing, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Peter is one of four students and three teachers who sued California's Compton Unified School District, contending the district violates federal laws by failing to help students and teachers deal with so-called complex trauma, which involves severe, pervasive and repeated events like long-term abuse or neglect. The lawsuit, which seeks certification as a class action, accuses the district of violating the federal Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In our culture of 24/7 news cycles and social media connectedness, we have a better opportunity than ever before to bring attention to important issues. In the last few years, Americans have collectively paid attention to the issue of bullying like never before; millions of school children have been given a voice, all 50 states in the U.S. have passed anti-bullying legislation, and thousands of adults have been trained in important strategies to keep kids both physically and emotionally safe in their classrooms and schools. These are significant achievements.