Administrative Support for Special Education Programs

This service is planned to assist local district and charter school special education administrators in providing a free appropriate public education to all children and youth with special needs. Emphasis is placed on providing services within the state and federal programmatic and fiscal regulations.

Professional Development

Professional development sessions are scheduled monthly for special education administrators. The focus for is Improving Student Performance through Effective Programming.

Additionally, an Annual Fall Leadership Conference occurs in November. This conference is held with keynote and breakout sessions that focus on effective leadership practices, effective programming criteria, promising instructional practices, ongoing compliance with federal and state rules and regulations, and provides opportunities to explore research-based instruction. The training focus is to provide support to those LEAs that are at various stages of the Response to Intervention school reform movement.

Technical Assistance

Funding

Serve as the first point of contact for districts and charter schools seeking information or support for the federal application process for IDEA-B funding. We also serve as technical assistance providers to any state or federal special education funding issues.

Accountability and Planning

Provide assistance to facilitate preparation of special education performance-based monitoring and ongoing compliance.
Assistance in addressing 125% issues.
Assistance with development, implementation, and evaluation of continuous improvement plans.
Provide training and technical assistance to LEAs/SSAs to facilitate the accountability and needs assessment process.
RF Monitoring: Provide technical assistance and support for all aspects of residential facilities monitoring.
Provide assistance to facilitate compliance with the State Performance Plan (SPP) Indicators and the resulting LEA Determination ratings

PEIMS

Provide support for appropriate and accurate PEIMS reporting for special education program.

Required TEA Meeting Reports
Summary of ESC Region 10 Public Meeting Final Report: 2009-2010

Stakeholder Input

Region:

10

Indicator 8:

Required Indicator

Question # 1: What activities and practices can schools implement to encourage parent involvement that will result in improve student outcomes?

LEAs should encourage and nurture trust/respect by inviting parents for classroom observations, encourage classroom/campus opportunities for parents to volunteer, provide opportunities for 2-way communication and training, and be respectful of parent’s schedules, transportation needs and child-care needs when scheduling ARDS and meetings.

Establish an LEA ombudsman/case manager/advocate approach when the child is referred and then determined eligible so that families and the school have a single point of contact throughout the child’s special education educational career. This would encourage the school to have knowledge of the “whole” child and the parents/families to have a person whom they can trust to give them support, guidance, and important information so that parents can see the “big picture” of their child’s educational programming. This would also encourage a more thorough discussion at the local level when disagreements or misunderstandings occur.

Hold schools accountable for quality parent training and hold staff accountable for appropriate treatment and interactions with parents; also hold campus administrators responsible for a climate that discourages/encourages parent involvement.

Create and implement school sponsored events (maybe 3 to 4 a year) that include both parents and staff members whose mission statement is to support students with special needs.

Mandate an annual “state of the LEA special education program” in every LEA to provide parents and stakeholders with explanations of how the special education program is performing and then have annual meetings at the LEA that allows this type of public meeting format for improvement planning.

Region:

10

Indicators 1 & 2:

Question: When it appears that s student with disabilities may not graduate, what can the school, parents, and the communities do to prevent the student from dropping out?

Build business-school collaboratives that offer supported employment opportunities; provide the businesses that join with incentives for establishing the skill-sets necessary for employment and then provide quality training to students with special needs that ensures that the businesses involved have a qualified employment pool.

Provide vocational technical schools that focus on specialized skills that meet the needs of students with disabilities

Start post secondary planning much earlier—at least by the junior high years so that students become involved in student-centered planning for their future.

Provide opportunities to parents and students to gain a bigger picture of the special education time frames, process, and school training opportunities so they all can make appropriate plans for the future

Mandate that adult service agencies and service providers are at the planning table by no later than the junior year in high school and hold those agencies accountable for their part of the post secondary adult services and support.

Region:

10

Indicators 4:

Question: How can positive behavior support be implemented by parents, schools and other local agencies to keep students with IEPS in their classrooms?

Train all school staff and parents of students (both gen. ed. and sped) on the differences between positive behavior supports and the discipline assignments required under the student code of conduct.

Always determine the function of the behavior for a students with special needs before assigning an out of classroom discipline assignment such as ISS, OSS or DAEP—this analysis may indicate a need for social skills training, alternative teaching approaches, more intervention as a result of harassment or bullying, etc. and not a need for punishment of the student with disabilities.

For students with sensory issues, all staff need to be aware of how sensory stimulus may have impacted the student’s behavior and all school/ transportation staff (not just teachers) need to be trained on all aspects of sensory issues.

Hold principals and staff accountable when BIP is not implemented as designed—do not punish a student for what the adult has done to either stimulate the inappropriate behavior or reward it.

Limit the use of law enforcement agencies or SROs in the school for behaviors that are persistent misbehaviors or minor incidents (student is not endangering himself or others) when dealing with students with disabilities; this growing practice has taken the responsibility/accountability of appropriately implementing the BIP out of the campus’s hands and has completely placed punishment into the hands of the law enforcement officers.

10 - 11 Calendar

Rosemary Manges
Administrative Support
Telephone Number: (972) 348-1770
FAX Number: (972) 348-1771
Email: rosemary.manges@region10.org

Special Education Home

Administrative Support for Special Education Programs

Professional Development

Technical Assistance

Funding

Accountability and Planning

PEIMS

Links

Rules and Regulations

Agencies

FEDERAL

STATE

References