Updates

Care for children with trauma related needs.

Early trauma changes the developing brain and relationships hold the key to recovery. Key paradigm shifts and important tools for implementing compassionate, trauma-informed care allow us to navigate, facilitate and empower recovery and build resilience. This workshop will focus on:

• Implementing compassionate, trauma-informed care
• Crisis management and de-escalation techniques

The Details:

• When: March 23, 2019
• Where: Central Kitsap School District Teaching and Learning Center
• Time: 9:00 am – 12:00 pm (doors open at 8:30)
• Cost: $40 non-CCBD members/$35 CCBD members
• Register: WACCBD.ORG

SPECIAL OPPORTUNITY TO PROVIDE INPUT ON SIGNIFICANTLY DISPROPORTIONALITY

CASE needs your input!  This is your opportunity to get involved and be heard! The CASE Executive Committee and the Policy and Legislative Committee continue to study the complex issue of disproportionality.  Please take this opportunity to review the work that has been done to date and provide input.  CASE needs your voice and expertise.

CASE has been hard at work on behalf of its members on the issue of disproportionality.  After gathering feedback at the Board of Directors meeting in November, CASE submitted comments regarding the issue to Johnny Collett, the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS).  As we move into the next phase, we are asking for additional feedback to ensure we are on the right track with our work.

A brief summary of the Letter to Johnny Collett:
The letter laid out a new path for the federal government to take with regard to disproportionality.  Specifically:

• Work with the IDEA Data Technical Assistance Center to identify three standard risk ratios that could be used across the country (rather than one) and require every school district to examine their practices around disproportionality once every four years using these risk ratios.
• Providing specific staff within OSEP to support technical assistance for states and local education agencies identifying issues with disproportionality.
• Reviewing the use of the 15% set aside required when a district is identified as having disproportionality.

The results of this survey will be used to tailor our message with the Department of Education and to provide additional feedback to key officials as this issue moves forward.

Please read the letter prior to taking this survey

Some schools are eliminating homework, citing research showing it doesn’t do much to boost achievement. But maybe teachers just need to assign a different kind of homework. In 2016, a second-grade teacher in Texas delighted her students — and at least some of their parents — by announcing she would no longer assign homework. “Research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance,” she explained.  READ MORE

A group behavior contingency is a classroom management system designed to proactively support appropriate classroom behavior. Groups or teams of students are rewarded for exhibiting appropriate or desirable classroom behaviors rather than being punished or reprimanded for exhibiting inappropriate or undesirable behaviors. Why use a GBC? Gimmicks like names on the board, check marks, and loss of recess don’t work and are self-shaming to students.  READ MORE

Curtis Chandler, a contributor for MiddleWeb, writes: “Few things are more frustrating for students (and their teachers) than having a concept or skill that has already been learned ‘leak out the brain’ and disappear mysteriously into thin air. As educators, we do our best to make things ‘sticky’ by piquing students’ interests, communicating clear learning goals, building on background knowledge, fostering and maintaining engagement, cultivating discussion, modeling and scaffolding challenging tasks, providing feedback, differentiating instruction, etc., etc.”  READ MORE

The Trump administration is planning to rethink existing regulations that radically altered the transition from school to work for people with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Education is expected to issue a proposal this month changing how the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act is implemented. The 2014 law requires that individuals with disabilities age 24 and younger pursue competitive integrated employment before they can work in jobs paying less than minimum wage.  READ MORE

Guidance issued during the Obama administration, which was aimed at ensuring that minorities and students with disabilities weren’t unfairly disciplined, is no more. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Education indicated in late December that a 2014 “Dear Colleague” letter informing schools of their responsibilities when meting out discipline has officially been rescinded. The move came just days after a federal school safety panel chaired by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recommended abandoning the guidance.  READ MORE

In September of 2018 the CEC Board of Directors approved a new policy concerning the prevention of and response to maltreatment (i.e., neglect & abuse). The policy is designed to improve the safety and wellbeing of all children with disabilities through enhancements in research, teacher preparation standards, professional development opportunities, school policies, advocacy programs, curricular resources, and instructional strategies. This policy was designed to expand the current professional focus upon recognition and reporting, to a focus upon prevention of and response to maltreatment. The change in focus is supported by a broad coalition of agencies and organizations, including the CEC Board of Directors, several CEC Divisions, IDC members and the CEC Representative Assembly. The new CEC policy is guided by data concerning the long term risks associated with child maltreatment and the fact that children with disabilities are three times more likely to be maltreated than their nondisabled peers.

CASE is collaborating with the IDC Maltreatment Work Group in the design, development and dissemination of K-12 policies, professional development opportunities and curricular resources. At this initial stage of the work CASE is seeking to identify “Bright Spots,” i.e., school leaders who have existing expertise concerning maltreatment as experienced by children with disabilities. CASE members with this expertise are asked to contact Dr. Harold Johnson/CoChair of the IDC Maltreatment Work Group (3hjohnson@nullgmail.com) or Jamie Hopkins (jamiehopkins777@nullgmail.com), member IDC Maltreatment Work Group. Dr. Johnson or Ms. Hopkins will then follow up to provide more information concerning the “Bright Spot” initiative.

Additional information and collaborative opportunities regarding the new CEC policy on maltreatment will be provided in subsequent CASE communications.  READ MORE

The National Center for Systemic Improvement is pleased to present a two-part webinar series: Got Evidence? Where to Find and How to Use It to Make Sound Decisions About Evidence-Based Practices. The term “evidence-based practice” in early childhood has its roots in evidence-based medicine and relies upon identifying and combining multiple sources of evidence to make decisions about services for young children and their families. The NCSI has created an interconnected suite of tools that explain the history and rationale behind using these multiple sources, where to look for evidence, and how to appraise and combine the evidence to inform the selection, implementation, and evaluation of specific practices for individuals or groups of children and families.

The first webinar on Feb. 15 will introduce the suite of tools and engage participants in considering real world vignettes that illustrate their application in early childhood programs. Click here to register for webinar 1.

The second webinar on March 1 will engage participants more deeply in using the tools to conduct the search for evidence, evaluate information from different sources, and synthesize it to make decisions about practices to implement and how to ensure they improve outcomes for the children and families in participants’ specific contexts. Click here to register for webinar 2.

For further information, please contact: Taletha Derrington, tderrington@nullair.org or Monica Mathur-Kalluri, mmathur@nullwested.org