Updates

Special Education Directors,

The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) will hold its annual convention in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 1–4. Thousands of special educators and related service providers will attend this event. It also will draw large numbers of students enrolled in special education teacher preparation programs.

Greetings,

Writing better goals and effectively monitoring student progress towards those goals are foundational skills for Related Service Providers. Positive student outcomes can only be achieved when school-based therapists are able to do both consistently. Good data on good goals leads to effective interventions and allows therapists to write better progress reports in less time. And we know that “time spent on paperwork” is a leading cause of therapist burnout. For all of these reasons, we are very excited about the next presentation in our series of Related Service Provider Seminars: Creating Goals that Are Easy to Monitor and a Stress-Free Companion Monitoring Tool with Carlo Vialu, PT, MBA, and Peggy Morris, OTD, OTR/L, BCP. This workshop is designed for Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, and Speech-Language Pathologists and will convey ASHA, APTA, and AOTA CEUs. Please share with your staff.

Creating Goals That Are Easy to Monitor and A Stress-Free Companion Monitoring Tool

Special Education Stakeholders,

ADE/ESS is excited to share that Arizona’s 2023 IDEA Conference will be held in person from August 21–23, 2023, at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge in Phoenix.

This year’s theme is Creating Connections and Strengthening Systems. This cross-stakeholder event is intended for special education administrative staff, youth and young adults with disabilities, family members and caregivers, state agency staff, educators, service providers, and community members committed to student success. The event will feature over 75 professional learning opportunities, including IDEA legal issues, instructional practices, national trends and hot topics, special education compliance, preschool and secondary transition, and content for related service providers.

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT       

Special Education Data Updates Webinar Wednesday, February 15th 

   The Exceptional Student Services Data Management team will host the next Special Education Data Updates live webinar on Wednesday, February 15th, from 2pm – 3pm. This session will cover a variety of data topics that will include (subject to change):   

• Reminders 
• Trending topics 
• Top 3 Integrity Errors 
• Q&A        

Special Education Directors,

The ADE/ESS Professional Learning and Sustainability unit is pleased to announce two “grow your own” opportunities for educators in Arizona public schools.

• The General Education Teacher to Special Education Teacher (GETSET) program provides tuition reimbursement to certified general education teachers who want to pursue a career change to become certified in an area of special education. 
   

• The Special Education Teacher Tuition Assistance (SETTA) program provides tuition reimbursement to paraprofessionals and educational interpreters that leads to special education teaching certification.

Special Education Directors,

All school districts and charter schools are required to annually administer the State Performance Plan Indicator 8 Parent Involvement Survey to parents of students with an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The survey will open on February 2 via ADEConnect ESS Data Surveys.

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT    

ESS October 1 Data Collection (ODC) – SPED73 and SPED07 Reports Accurate - Phase II Due Date 1/25 

Thank you for your patience while Exceptional Student Services (ESS) worked with ADE-IT on troubleshooting issues with the reports and functionality for October 1 child count processing. 

The issues are now resolved, and the October 1 reports are now accurate. For SPED students, the AzEDS Portal SPED73 report and the ESS October 1 Data Collection application SPED07 report both provide accurate feedback for students reported in AzEDS served over October 1. 

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT   

ESS October 1 Data Collection (ODC) – Phase II Due Date Extended

Exceptional Student Services (ESS) is working with ADE-IT on troubleshooting issues with the reports and functionality for October 1 child count processing.

Since public education agencies (PEAs) cannot utilize reports between systems in reconciling their October 1 counts, the October 1 process will now be closing on January 25, 2023 at 5pm.

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT   

ESS October 1 Data Collection – SPED73 and SPED07 Report Inaccuracies

Exceptional Student Services (ESS) Data Management has identified an issue with some students either showing “N” for Oct 1 Eligible on the SPED73 report or missing from the SPED07 report. Our IT team is currently working to resolve this issue.  Please continue to monitor your INTEG15 report to ensure student integrity errors are corrected so they may populate your reports once the resolution is in place. 

The January 18 Phase II deadline remains in effect at this time.

Special Education Directors,

Writing better goals and effectively monitoring student progress towards those goals are foundational skills for Related Service Providers. Positive student outcomes can only be achieved when school-based therapists can do both consistently. Good data on good goals leads to effective interventions and allows therapists to write better progress reports in less time. And we know that “time spent on paperwork” is a leading cause of therapist burnout. For these reasons, we are very excited about the next presentation in our series of Related Service Provider Seminars, Creating Goals that Are Easy to Monitor and a Stress-Free Companion Monitoring Tool, with Carlo Vialu, PT, MBA, and Peggy Morris, OTD, OTR/L, BCP. This workshop is designed for Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, and Speech-Language Pathologists and will convey ASHA, APTA, and AOTA CEUs. Please share with your staff.