Department of Student Services
Exceptional Students…Exceptional Staff 3.1.16
Spotlight
Dedicated School Psychologist by day, the district’s premier expert on Positive Behavior Interventions and Support by night, Dr. Amy Harris is a shining star in this month’s Spotlight. Not only does Dr. Harris lead school teams at Academy of World Languages to collaborate and problem solve for Cincinnati Public School’s culturally diverse learners She also plays a vital role as a school psychologist at St. Ursula and is an accomplished presenter with a focus in the area of social and emotional education and health. We are so happy to have her with us to lend expertise to the district-wide effort to implement Tier 1 Interventions across our schools.
Dr. Harris brings a wealth of resources to expand and implement research based strategies as part of Positive Behavior Intervention and Support for positive social, emotional and academic outcomes for all students. Dr. Harris is an integral member of our department’s team, lending her experience as a National Presenter for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support to strengthen our impact as she has presented during our quarterly PBIS professional development days to every school in the district.
We are proud to honor Dr. Harris in this month’s spotlight and proud to have her as a part of our team. As she expands her role as a PBIS Technical Assistance Coach, we encourage building level PBIS teams to reach out to Dr. Harris by email to provide coaching support to staff for implementation, data monitoring and student success in Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 PBIS systems.
Thank you, Dr. Harris for being an expert in the field to train, support and implement Positive Behavior Intervention and Support Systems in our buildings!
HQT TRAINING Spring and Summer 2016
ELA, Math, Social Studies & Pedagogy
All Intervention Specialists who are Teacher of Record for core academic subjects will need to meet the HQT requirements appropriate to their role. Classes in content and pedagogy will be offered free of cost to CPS Intervention Specialists. Content will be presented using a bring your own device format and taught by certified instructors from Hamilton County Educational Center.
Starting in 2016-2017, Intervention Specialists of students eligible for the Alternate Assessment for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities in Grades 7-12 will need to comply with new requirements to meet highly qualified teacher status.
ODE HQT FAQ
Q: How does the Highly Qualified Teacher definition pertain to special educators & gifted, ESL educators/intervention specialists?
A: Special, ESL and gifted education teachers who provide instruction to students in core academic subjects must meet the highly qualified teacher requirements for each of those core academic subjects that they teach. These requirements apply whether the intervention specialist provides core academic instruction in an inclusion setting, a resource room or another setting.
Q: Does a teacher of multi-handicapped students or significantly cognitively disabled students need to be highly qualified in all 7th-12th grade core academic content areas?
A: A teacher whose students are eligible to be assessed against the alternate achievement standards may meet HQT requirements as they apply to a K-6th grade intervention specialist (Form D) for the 2015-2016 school year. For the 2016-2017 school year, teachers will need to be highly qualified in 7th-12th grade core academic content areas of their teaching assignment as it applies for 7th-12th grade intervention specialist (Form E). The Ohio Academic Content Standards-Extended provide access to Ohio’s New Learning Standards in core academic content areas for grades K-12. For more guidance, click here.
Q: If an intervention specialist has taken the Teaching Reading exam and passed, are they eligible to be HQT in ELA in Grades 7-12?
A: Yes. The Praxis II Teaching Reading Exam (#0204), Praxis II Introduction to the Teaching of Reading (#0200), or OAE Reading Subtest I (#038) and OAE Reading Subtest II (#039), would be considered the appropriate exam to show content knowledge (Section 3) for Intervention Specialists Grades 7-12 ELA per U.S. Department of Education (see Page 4).
Q: Does a K-6 special education & gifted, ESL education/intervention specialist need to show content knowledge (Section 3) for each core content area of their teaching assignment?
A: No. If they have taken and passed one or more of the following Ohio’s State Licensure Exams (OAE, Praxis II or NTE), one test covers for all core content areas for grades K-6;
Or if they meet the 90 clock hour option, only one core content area (or a combination) is necessary to apply to all core content areas in grades K-6.
For detailed information please visit the ODE web site & search for HQT toolkit.
Has a General Education teacher’s Individual Evaluator’s Assessment disappeared from your ETR? More than likely that means that your ETR has been rejected. Please have the General Education teacher login again to EdPlan to be sure that his or her assessment is still there, then logout. You should then be able to see the Individual Evaluator’s Assessment that you were looking for.
Email Tony Simonson (simonsa@cps-k12.org) with any questions that you may have.
Gifted News
If you are a parent of a gifted student or in contact with parents of gifted students, here is an amazing FREE opportunity!
What: Parents Resource Fair - a place to:
- Explore the unique academic and social-emotional needs of gifted and talented students through dynamic learning sessions offered by local experts in the field
- Talk with individual vendors about engaging enrichment camps, programs, and other opportunities outside of school
When: Saturday, March 5 from 9am-12pm
9:00-9:30 Registration and vendor tables
9:30-10:15 Session 1
10:15-10:30 Break and switch
10:30-11:15 Session 2
11:15-12:00 Vendor tables
Where: Little Miami Intermediate School
7247 Zoar Rd, Maineville, OH 45039
The fair is free, but registration is required. To register, go to http://bit.ly/1JDnO6W
For any questions, contact Nicole Dietrich nicole.dietrich@hcesc.org or
513-674-4233
High School Principals of AA Teachers
Just another reminder...your gifted students can be shown as served(Gifted Indicator) if they are enrolled in AA courses or AP courses in their area of giftedness. AP teachers are highly qualified to teach the students, but AA teachers need an initial short PD with ongoing support from Betsy Singh to be Highly Qualified. Please contact Betsy Singh to set up a time so information can be shared with your teachers of AA.
Compliance Tip
Compliance Tip:
The biggest aid in assuring we have 100% compliance is being aware of approaching deadlines for ETR/IEP’s. Ed Plan has awesome reporting/query capabilities and you can run them for yourself. Do it often as new children are arriving in your building.
ETR due report in Ed Plan
· Click on Students in Green tab line
· Immediately scroll to bottom and click Advanced Student Search
· Under Schools drop down and select your school
· Scroll down under Eligibility (in the blue) and click compliant, warning, and overdue boxes
· Click View Students button at the bottom
· You will get a list...to sort them in order of ETR due click "Next ETR Due" column and it will sort for you.
IEP due report in Ed Plan
· Click on Students in Green tab line
· Immediately scroll to bottom and click Advanced Student Search
· Under Schools drop down and select your school
· Scroll down under IEP (in the blue) and click compliant, warning, and overdue boxes
· Click View Students button at the bottom
· You will get a list...to sort them in order of IEP due click “IEP END" column and it will sort for you.
Preschool Disabilities
TASH is an international leader in disability advocacy striving for fully inclusive schools, workplaces, and communities. Please check out the website: http://TASH.org/. This website is for any practitioner in the field of Early Childhood Special Education.
Another phenomenal website for educators is http://www.seriweb.com. Special Education Resources on the Internet (SERI) is a collection of Internet accessible information resources of interest to those involved in fields related to special education. This collection exists in order to make online special education resources more easily and readily available in one location. This site will continually modify, update, and add additional informative links frequently so be sure to check back to keep abreast on new information and resources.
If you have any questions about Preschool Disabilities feel free to contact Dr. Linda Hicks at 513-207-8720.
Goalbook
Goalbook has such a variety of tools that it may be overwhelming. One place to start is choosing which Goalbook product do you want to explore at www.goalbookapp.com, Pathways is Goalbook's tool which examines instruction first from a large group activity, whereas Toolkit is the tool that begins at an individual level.
In this issue, we will focus on Toolkit.
1. In order to use Goalbook Toolkit in the most practical way you would want access the CPS Pacing Guide for your subject Math https://goo.gl/3tjSM3 and ELAhttp://goo.gl/OSJKXe. Collaborate with the Regular Education Teacher to investigate further what particular standard is currently being covered.
2. After thoroughly investigating the standards and choosing the correct ones, open Goalbook Toolkit to search that standard.
An example is listed below in order to show some of the capabilities of Goalbook.
1. The standard is listed
2. A goal is listed for mastery of the standard for an average student.
3. Goalbook then breaks down the mastery goal with supports and strategies so that students can glean what is necessary for mastery.
4. Goalbook explicitly states how to use UDL strategies to support all students.
If you have any questions about how to best use Goalbook please feel free to contact Thea Staley staleyt@cps-k12.org.
Goalbook Toolkit for Individualization
Unit 1 – 4th Grade Math Pacing Guide
Math Standard 4.NBT.A.2 Read, write and compare the value of multi-digit numbers in multiple forms using symbols.
Individual Goals
Average Student
By (date), given a multiplicative comparison word problem (e.g. "Max ate 13 pieces of Halloween candy, and Tina ate 4 times as many. How many pieces of candy did Tina eat?"), (name) will extract the equation from the word problem (e.g. 13 x 4) and solve (13 x 4 = 52), for (4 out of 5) multiplicative comparisons.
By (date), given an illustrated multiplicative comparison word problem (e.g. "Max ate 13 pieces of Halloween candy, and Tina ate 4 times as many. How many pieces of candy did Tina eat?"), (name) will extract the equation from the word problem (e.g. 13 x 4) and solve (13 x 4 = 52), for (4 out of 5) multiplicative comparisons.
By (date), when given 5 pairs of multi-digit whole numbers up to 10,000 in standard form, and base ten blocks, (name) will write each in expanded form, read the number, and then compare each pair using >, =, and < correctly for 4/5 numbers. For example, 450,987 can be read as, " four hundred fifty thousand nine hundred eighty seven", written in expanded form as, "400,000 + 50,000 + 900 + 80 + 7", and compared as, "596,222 > 450,987".
By (date), when given 5 multi-digit whole numbers up to 1,000 in standard form and base ten blocks manipulatives, (name) will be able to illustrate the multi-digit whole numbers using base-ten blocks and determine which number is larger, smaller, or equal by comparing numbers correctly for 4 out of 5 digit
UDL Strategies
· UDL I 1.1 Offer ways of customizing the display of information
Pairing students with a peer buddy will increase engagement levels and elicit more confident responses. Peer buddies can be extremely versatile: students can each perform specific parts of a task and put them together to form one cohesive whole (in this case, one student may extract the equation from the word problem and the other can solve), or they can maneuver through an entire task together, bouncing ideas off each other as they work. Partner work also provides an opportunity to practice collaboration, which is an invaluable life skill that students can take with them beyond the classroom.
· UDL II 4.1 Vary the methods for response and navigation
For students who need a little support to successfully extract an equation from a word problem, create a multiple choice format of this assignment. When provided multiple choice options as an initial starting point, students are given the opportunity to complete the assignment in a lower frustration environment. Perhaps on the next trial, students will be able to extract the equation with the assistance of a peer buddy. After practicing collaboratively for a time, students may be ready to attempt the task entirely on their own.
· UDL III 9.3 Develop self-assessment and reflection
Teachers may choose to provide a problem-solving checklist to serve as a reminder of the steps necessary to complete the assignment. The checklist itself can be modified to meet an individual student's needs, including more or less information based on a given student's proficiency. For this specific assignment, teachers may include information such as "Identify the numbers in the equation," or "Determine the operation you will need to use to solve the equation," or "Extract the equation from the word problem and write it down before solving and showing your work."
Instructional Tools
Please take a moment to read the chart below which highlights our students’ challenge with reading.
Co-teaching Roundtables are Here!
WHO: All intervention specialists, general education teachers, (it would be great to attend as a co-teaching pair if possible), building administrators
WHEN/WHERE: Mayerson, course number- 1991.6452
3/9/16: Instruction and Strategies
4/13/16: Data Collection
5/11/16: Becoming a Co-Teaching Model in Your Building
You may attend all offerings or select dates that are most interesting to the co-teaching team. We look forward to seeing you!