Improving Special Education Services (ISES) Stakeholders Meeting Workgroup Recommendations

June 2, 2009

Workgroup #1 Disproportionality

Indicator # 4a, 4b, 9 & 10 by ethnicity and overall disproportionality indicators

Stages of Disproportionality:

• No Disproportionality
• At risk for Disporportionality
• Disproportionate Representation
• At risk for Significant Disproportionality
• Significant Disproportionality

Recommendations

OVER Representation:

1. Look at history for Significant disproportionality
2. LEA has standard errors of 10 = Disproportional Representation, if a LEA has standard errors of 15 = Significantly Disproportionant
3. District at risk for Disproportionality will not have sanctions, only districts with Significant Disproportionality will have sanctions

UNDER Representation:

1. 12 standard error or over = Disproportionant Representation

 

Workgroup #2 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)

 “The funds must be used to improve student achievement through school improvement and reform.” – Mary Hudler

Recommendations

1. Trainings

• SE law trainings for all
• Access to lawyers early in disputes
• SE teachers
• GE administrators
• SELPA trainings around co-teaching/consulting/etc. requirement law
• Trainings for parents – FAMILY FOCUS
• Online/digital IEPS – resources for family “parent training” (be mindful of criteria & extra barriers create narrative option)
• Transition
• Post-school outcomes
• Identifying resources

2. Ways to Use Funds

• Student Focus
• Staff Focus
• Expand Certification Options
• Expand Staff to support Closing the Achievement Gap
• Family Focus

3. Align Spending to goals & ongoing practices, not fads.
4. Review Areas of Weakness

• SPPI (especially #15 – Secondary Transition)
• Post Schools Outcomes
• Family Involvement

5. Money Should be used with LONGEVITY in mind

• Use of technology resources in class
• Capacity
• Capital Investment
• Learning Design
• “UDL” - Universal Design for Learning
• Training the Trainer

 

Workgroup #3 Parent Involvement

Indicator #8

Recommendations

1. Meet in July to do a research plan about the NCSEAM parent surveys. The survey is available for anyone to try, go to website: test.scoe.net/ncseam.

 

Workgroup #4 Strategic Leadership Plan

Recommendations

The following recommendations focus on the implementation of the Ca Strategic Plan for the Recruitment, Preparation, and Retention of Special Education Personnel.  Specifically, the recommendations address the collaborative work with the California Department of Education’s Closing the Achievement Gap (CTAG) and West Ed to enhance the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) and the CA School Climate Survey (CSCS) with a Special Education Supports Module (SESM). The outcome of this collaborative effort is to improve school climate and increase special education personnel retention.  

1. As West Ed develops a parent survey to be added to the CA School Climate Survey (CSCS), the Strategic Leadership Workgroup was asked to provide input.  The following recommendations regarding the parent survey resulted from the workgroup discussion.  Survey questions need to:

• Target parent/families
• Capture the relationship with school
• Include demographic information from responding parents/families
• Reflect existing research and surveys
• Include all the draft questions presented by West-Ed, however rearrange the order from general to more specific populations

2. Workgroup discussion on how to improve the “marketing” of the SESM (Special Education Support Module) resulted in the following recommendations:

• Produce user-friendly, data presentation with graphics, bullets, charts, etc.
• Tie data to results ... “Why is this important?”  “So What?”
• Promote systemic change that is both top down, and bottom up
• For example, utilize a school Site Council Leadership Team (i.e. parents) – Create pilot programs/models
• Publicize uses of the Special Education Supports Module (SESM) data (Examples: grants, negotiations-bargaining table, create links between GE, SE, CTAG)

 

3. Workgroup discussion included recommendations for “Moving to Outcome.” 

• Create individual school site plans
• Use a school Site Leadership Team (i.e. Community Advisory Committee) for plan development
• Value input and energy of Site Leadership Team by Administration
• Provide training that includes administrators on team building, enhanced communication skills, and implementing school climate changes

Question:  Do you know who is the CHKS coordinator and what do they do?
Answer:  The CHKS (California Healthy Kids Survey) Coordinator is the person responsible for coordinating the Ca Healthy Kids Survey and the CA School Climate Survey at the district level.  The coordinator provides information regarding the administration of the surveys as well as the posting of the survey results.  In order to promote participation in the Special Education Supports Module, special education staff need to know who the local CHKS coordinator is at their site. 

For more information: www.wested.org/chks or www.wested.org/cscs

 

 

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