The ADE/ESS Assistive Technology Team announces the 2013-2014 Tech For Learning Communities (TLC) Capacity Building Grant is now open!

This is a non-competitive grant—first in, first funded—so time is of the essence!  15 PEAs will be awarded the grant; preference will be given for PEAs who have not yet participated.

To lay the foundation for capacity building and systemic change in their schools, teams of educators known as Tech for Learning Communities (TLCs) will participate in 13 days of training workshops in fundamentals of assistive technology and Universal Design for Learning during the school year 2013-2014. Training will be conducted by internationally recognized leaders of assistive technology (AT) with support provided by the Arizona Department of Education, Exceptional Student Services (ADE/ESS), AT Team. All team members are expected to contribute to the training of other education professionals in the home public education agency (PEA).

ADE/ESS is extending an invitation for eligible district or charter schools to apply for this grant-supported team training program. The program includes a series of outcome-driven training events over a one-year period. At the end of the year, the team will be equipped to more fully apply new skills while working with students with disabilities.

Grant funding is allowed for up to five team members per to pay for the following training-related expenditures:

•  Team training registration, which includes breakfast, lunch, and break snacks on training days
•  Teacher substitutes for members to attend scheduled trainings
• Travel expenses for teams whose school sites are located a minimum of 50 miles from the training site (i.e., mileage, lodging, and meals that are not covered by the team registration fee)
• Printed and online resources and materials distributed in the trainings that are aligned with training content

Seven hours of continuing education units (CEUs) per team member for participation in each training day will be awarded.

The Fund Alert for the 2013-2014 TLC Grant can be found on the Grants Management Application – http://www.ade.az.gov/GME/FundingProfileView/FundingProfileSummary.asp?ID=776.

The files required for the grant application can be found here: http://www.ade.az.gov/GME/FundingProfileView/FundingProfileFiles.asp?ID=776.

For more information or if you have questions about the grant or the application process, please contact Ramona Minter at: (602) 542- 3852 or Ramona.Minter@azed.gov.

If you would like to be notified of upcoming Assistive Technology training events, please add your e-mail address to our contact list here.

Back to Assistive Technology page.

On behalf of the Arizona Graduation Workgroup, ADE/ESS is pleased to present two guidance documents related to graduation for students with disabilities: Graduation and Students with Disabilities: A Guide for Public Education Agencies and Graduation and Students with Disabilities: A Guide for Parents. These documents are attached to this email, but are also available on a newly developed ADE/ESS graduation website: http://www.azed.gov/special-education/graduation.

In order to better understand the perspectives of students, families, schools, and agencies involved in graduation planning, the Arizona Department of Education, Exceptional Student Services (ADE/ESS), solicited volunteers from the field to compose a graduation workgroup. This workgroup includes representatives from all relevant stakeholder groups, and its purpose is a continuing one—to discuss and develop guidance to assist public education agencies (PEAs) and individualized education program (IEP) teams in making informed decisions about graduation for students with disabilities.

These documents are intended to clarify Arizona’s graduation requirements, their interplay with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and how graduation requirements impact students with disabilities. They represent the first communication from the graduation workgroup and are not intended to be “one size fits all” guides for all graduation issues nor will they address all questions related to graduation. ADE/ESS, through the advisement of the graduation workgroup, ADE/Legal Department, and other ADE program areas, will continue to generate helpful documents, resources, and web links and to disseminate them to the field on a regular basis. Additional related topics will be addressed in future communications and presentations related to this guidance will be provided at the Directors Institute (August 2013) and Arizona’s Thirteenth Annual Transition Conference (September/October 2013).

The Post School Outcomes (PSO) Survey web-based application accessed via the ADE Common Logon will be available between July 1 and September 30, 2013 for students who exited during the 2011—2012 school year. All public education agencies (PEAs) serving students aged 16 and older are encouraged to participate in the PSO Survey on a yearly basis for programmatic planning and improvement purposes, but are only required to participate in the assigned year for their district or charter school. Note: PSO data from PEAs that conduct the PSO Survey outside of an assigned data collection year will not be reported to the Office for Special Education Programs (OSEP) or publicly reported. However, voluntary participation in the PSO is a great opportunity for PEAs to review and inform their transition practices. All PEAs that participate in the PSO Survey will be able to access their schools’ results through the web-based application.

For information about your PEA’s assigned data collection year for the PSO Survey, consult the updated Complete Cycle 2 PSO Participation List found at http://www.azed.gov/special-education/files/2012/07/cycle-2-pso-quick-list-requirements-3-11-13.pdf.

Trainings: ADE/ESS will offer webinar trainings on the PSO Survey data collection requirement, including information on how to use the PSO Survey web-based application, as well as how to interpret PSO data. Please see the flyer for webinar dates and a description of available trainings. All PEA personnel administering the PSO Survey are strongly encouraged to attend one of the offered webinars. For more information and to register for a webinar, consult the ADE/ESS PSO website, http://tinyurl.com/PSO2013.

For questions related to PSO Survey participation or scheduled trainings, please email psoinbox@azed.gov or contact Lorrie Sheehy via email at Lorrie.Sheehy@azed.gov.

Back to Post School Outcomes (PSO) Survey Page.

The Arizona Education Employment Board (AEEB) is a free employment board, designed exclusively for the education recruitment needs of Arizona Schools.  In 2011-2012, 3077 education jobs were filled by districts and schools using the employment board.  The AEEB averages 8,000 hits per day, with a high of 13,000 hits per day during busy recruitment months (April, May, and June).  The AEEB is one of the most frequently visited education employment websites in the United States.

http://www.arizonaeducationjobs.com

We hope that you will take advantage of this free service in the coming months.

Contact Information:

Tracy Faulkner
Recruitment and Retention Specialist
Tracy.Faulkner@azed.gov
Telephone: 602-364-2195

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Roll out of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has begun and educators across the country are being challenged to realign curriculum and address shifts in instructional priorities as they prepare for implementation. Special educators must be proactive and engage in this same work. Instructional resources will be identified that can assist special educators to develop IEPs that are instructionally relevant and designed to increase access to the general education curriculum.

The Arizona Department of Education, Exceptional Student Services is proud to announce three professional development opportunities to support you in this journey:

• February 21, 2013 from 3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. IEPs and the Common Core State Standards Webinar. This webinar will provide a brief introduction to the process of aligning IEPs to the Common Core State Standards. Further information will be provided in a full-day conference on March 27 or 28, 2013 – A Common Sense Approach to Writing IEPs Aligned to the Common Core Standards.

Download the presentation handout.

View the archived webinar here.

View questions asked during the webinar here.

• March 27, 2013 from 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. A Common Sense Approach to Writing IEPs Aligned to the Common Core Standards. This session is designed to help special educators increase students’ access to the general education curriculum. The learning objectives are: 1) participants will understand the structure of the Common Core State Standards and their instructional implications, and 2) participants will identify a structured protocol to align IEPs with the Common Core State Standards.

• March 28, 2013 from 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. A Common Sense Approach to Writing IEPs Aligned to the Common Core Standards. This is a repeat of the session presented on March 27, and is designed to help special educators increase students’ access to the general education curriculum.

To be added to a list of interested participants for our next round of training, please provide your contact information here.

Back to ESS Calendar.

On October 5, 2010, President Obama signed legislation requiring the federal government to replace the term “mental retardation” with “intellectual disability” in many areas of government. The measure known as Rosa’s Law, will strip the terms “mental retardation” and “mentally retarded” from federal health, education and labor policy. “Intellectual disability” or “individual with an intellectual disability” will be inserted in their places. The rights of individuals with disabilities will remain the same. 

The ADE is working towards making this change to be consistent with this new legislation. Even with the new law in effect, this change will not occur immediately. The current disability categories of MIMR, MOMR, and SMR within SAIS will not be changed to reflect the new terminology until FY 2014. Please note however, that budget forms and worksheets for FY 2013 provided by School Finance includes the change from MMR to “Moderate Intellectual Disability”. 

Over the course of this year, ADE/ESS will begin the conversion of all ESS related documents and business rules to the new terminology. Thank you for your patience as we make this transition.