Posted: 14 Mar 2011 08:44 AM PDT

Article updated: 3/14/2011 11:44 AM

Arlington Heights Elementary District 25 released its annual special education report this month with the tagline "Celebrating Possibilities."

But some parents at Thursday's board of education meeting said the report was nothing to celebrate.

The report, which is available on the district's website, outlines several aspects of special education services in the district, including the number of students with disabilities by program, data on students who moved into the district with special education needs and percent of students with special education needs by grade.

The report shows that 12.8 percent of the district's students receive special education services, below the state average of 14.7 percent. Those figures troubled some parents, who took it as a sign the district was not doing enough to identify and serve children with special needs.

"There is absolutely nothing to celebrate in this report," said parent Bonnie Graham.

If the district were at the state average, Graham said, as many as 96 additional students would be receiving special education services.

"We should be embarrassed. When has the district considered it OK for us to be below average? Something is not right. These kids deserve these services," she said.

District 25 Director of Student Services Dennis Joyce said the numbers reflect increased efforts to identify special needs at a younger age in hopes that learning difficulties can be prevented or improved to prevent challenges later in the student's academic career.

Those efforts are part of the Response to Intervention (RTI), a federally mandated program designed to help identify learning difficulties early.

District 25 was one of the first to adopt RTI, even before it was required in 2004. The intent of the program was to reduce the number of students receiving special education, Joyce said.

"The model is working," he added.

The report indicated that more than 90 percent of parents gave the district ratings of satisfactory or above in the following areas: how valued parents feel as members of Individualized Education Program teams; how parents feel about communicating with school professionals; how those professionals make themselves available to answer questions; and how satisfied parents are with the decisions made by evaluation teams.

Graham, however, noted that the survey was sent to more than 800 parents and only 31 responded.

"Parents have given up. Nobody cares anymore and nobody's listening," she said. "The parent satisfaction survey is not an acceptable representation of how we parents feel in special education. We are not satisfied with communication."

The district is doing several things to improve communications with parents, Joyce said, including distributing a booklet introducing the special education program and creating a parent communications link on its student services website.

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D300 gets first peek at special education audit

Posted: 14 Mar 2011 08:00 PM PDT

D300 gets first peek at special education audit

By Emily McFarlan emcfarlan@stmedianetwork.com Mar 14, 2011 10:00PM

ALGONQUIN — A recent audit of Community Unit School District 300's special education program produced a report that is more than 80 pages long.

"Short version: Break down the silos."

So said Ronald Felton, associate director of the Urban Special Education Leadership Collaborative, which conducted the audit over the past several months.

Felton told the school board Monday night that the Carpentersville-based district has built a "silo," a special education program that stands separate from its regular education.

That's not unusual for an urban school district, he said. But many districts have taken steps to break down that silo, Felton said, and he briefly outlined 10 recommendations for District 300 to do that in the collaborative's report.

Felton delivered his audit report to the school board and a crowd of more than 130 that spilled into the hallway of the Professional Development Center at Westfield Community School.

The goal of the audit by the Massachusetts-based collaborative was to determine areas to improve the effectiveness, accountability and efficiency of the district's special education program, according to the district. It included an analysis of district data, as well as interviews with parents and district staff, Felton said.

And its results will be a major factor in a comprehensive overhaul of the D300 special education program, according to the district. That plan has not yet been finalized and will be implemented in the 2011-12 school year.

The collaborative's audit was prompted by a state audit last year that showed students with special needs in District 300 consistently lag about 10 points behind the state average in the time they spend in regular classrooms.

It showed the district's students with special needs "lag far behind" their peers who are not in the program, Felton said. Its rate of identifying students with special needs has dropped from 16.9 percent to 15.6 percent, but still is higher than state and national averages, he added.

Felton noted the small number of students with special needs spending time in general education classrooms as a concern, as the state had, but said the collaborative felt that District 300 is making "positive steps" in that area. He also said the collaborative was concerned the district employed "significantly more" para-educators than special educators.

Among the collaborative's recommendations, Felton said the district needs to "substantially decrease" its reliance on separate classes and clustered sites to educate its students with special needs.

District 300 will host a more detailed and interactive presentation of the audit's findings and recommendations at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Westfield Community School, 2100 Sleepy Hollow Road, Algonquin.

CCS honored for special education practices

Posted: 14 Mar 2011 02:14 PM PDT

BY MICHELLE MILLER

STAFF WRITER

Cooperstown Central School has been awarded a $10,000 grant to improve outcomes for students with disabilities.

The State Personal Development Grant was given by the Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs. Each state's grant is designed to address specific needs identified by the state, resulting in a wide range of projects and activities.

New York's project, S3TAIR, is designed to improve outcomes for students with disabilities by helping educators increase skills in literacy, positive behavior intervention and special education instruction.

Through the project, districts and schools that have effective, evidence based practices in these areas will mentor schools in need of assistance or intervention as they implement similar practices.

The S3TAIR Project operates through seven regions in the state with CCS located in the Hudson Region. A project team, comprised of representatives of higher education and the state education department, visited the Cooperstown Elementary School on Jan. 27, 2010, and validated the district as having best practice in the area of special education and literacy.

Mary Catherine Moran, S3TAIR regional field facilitator, presented a certificate of recognition at the district's March 2 board of education meeting. She said as a S3TAIR Mentor School, Cooperstown was given the grant to build on the current best practice and to support a school designated as being in need of assistance.

Moran said there has not been a school designated to CCS yet, but she is looking forward to working with members of the school district with future collaborative efforts.

At the board meeting, Moran read some of the general comments made by the visiting team, which observed teachers providing literacy instruction and intervention, interviewed teachers and administrators and reviewed documentation of student progress during the visit.

"Cooperstown has a well-oiled system in place to monitor each student's progress. The same can be said for measuring teacher gain in terms of skills and knowledge," she read.

"Common language and commitment has been carefully nurtured over a long term period so that all staff, including new hires, are aware of the goal of responsive education for all students," she continued.

Moran said another thing the team noted was, "there was real evidence of long-term planning." She said there is a framework and protocols in place on how to respond with children with disabilities, how to support teacher instructional strategies and so forth.

"I know in days of fiscal crises, often professional learning for teachers is one of the things that goes by the wayside.

There is so much research to support the fact that good teachers and good teaching results in academic progress for students so I applaud you for remaining committed to the professional learning to the staff you have," Moran said.

According to Moran, CCS has a well-thought-out process of comprehensive data collection and analysis.

"When you look at data, it speaks to how students are doing," Moran said. She said there is evidence to suggest that practice has changed as a result of reviewing student data. In other words, Moran said, the system is responsive to the evidence.

Laura Bliss Lamb, CSE/CPSE chairwoman at CCS and the school liaison for the project, said the funds awarded will be used for professional development, (things such as conferences, workshops and brining consultants to Cooperstown), curriculum work, literacy materials and reimbursement for travel to other schools.

"As long as the funding source doesn't change, we will be able to reapply for the next two years for an additional $10,000 each year," Lamb wrote in an e-mail.

"We are thrilled to be recognized for our hard work and the strategies we have put in place over the last six years. It is the culmination of a great deal of research, training, and commitment on the part of all of our general education, academic intervention and special education teachers," she continued.

Lamb said CCS is updating its practice and looking for ways to improve supports for all students, including those with disabilities.

"We have been working to improve literacy instruction for the last 10 years, with a particular focus on identifying individual student's specific areas of weakness, such as vocabulary, phonemic awareness, or comprehension, and then matching the most effective, research-proven interventions to address their weaknesses," she said.

Over the last six years, according to Lamb, the district has developed a school-wide universal screening program to identify trends and track the progress of all students in grades kindergarten through eighth grade.

"All students are screened three times a year, and the Response to Intervention team meets three times per year to review the data and discuss educational strategies" Lamb said. "We develop individualized intervention plans in place for those students who need additional support, while other students receive additional supports within the classroom setting. We are constantly updating our practice and the progress our students are making is a testament to the dedication of the staff and their constantly learn more and improve our instruction."

Lamb said the district was first nominated to apply for validation as a model school, and once it was validated and selected as a school with best practice it was eligible to apply for the grant.

She said she believes dedication and commitment to best practice and true desire to continue to learn about the best ways to instruct all students is what made CCS stand out compared to other districts.

She also contributes the ability to work as a team with all staff and review instructional data to identify trends and modify instruction to meet student needs.

"This has been a true team effort of the entire district," Lamb said.

The Response to Intervention Committee includes the following people: Michael Cring, Teresa Gorman, Mary Beth Murdock, Katie Baldo, Anne Olmstead, Miciah Abts, Diana Garcia-Pollock, Jennifer Rightmyer, Stephanie Nelen, Michele Townsend, Betsy O'Brien, Mary Tedesco, Bridget Bertram, Katie Lambert, Deb West-Arnot, Lisa Zoller, Lori Wrench, Adrienne Lentini, Michealle Cole, Donna Amberman and Lamb

There is a website on the S3TAIR project, which showcases mentor schools and their effective practices.

The website can be viewed at http://www.s3tairproject.org/ and video taken of CCS will soon be featured.

Special Education

Monday, March 14, 2011

“Dist. 25 special education program gets mixed reviews” plus 2 more

“Dist. 25 special education program gets mixed reviews” plus 2 more

D300 gets first peek at special education audit