Educational Services Newsletter
Student Services April 2021
OEC Corrective Action Plan Update
CH-UH has cleared the corrective actions that were mandated in our 2020 ODE Summary Findings Report. Thank you to everyone who participated in training and provided timely feedback pertaining to our action steps. The Student Services Department will continue to provide professional development in the area of IEP/ETR compliance. We will also continue to engage in our compliance monitoring team work, which serves as a mechanism for establishing greater accountability to our special education process.
Our next charge from ODE is a corrective action plan related to the following areas:
Disproportionality in Identification of Black Students with a Specific Learning Disability
Disproportionality in Discipline for Students with Disabilities
You can expect to receive training and partake in stakeholder groups to complete action steps related to these findings.
LRE Cohort Participation
Cleveland Heights-University Heights City Schools continues its participation in “The Examining Least Restrictive Environment Practices to Support Diverse Learners” series facilitated by the State Support Team (SST). This cohort model will allow district teams to gain awareness, build a deeper level of understanding, and change practices to ensure that all students are served in their least restrictive environment (LRE). Participants include Lindsay Baar (BOE), Patrick Carpenter (Noble), Ashley Fertig(Rox Mid), Erin Hanna(BOE), Karen Hansen(CHHS), Michael Jenkins (Blvd), Kim Kolecki(Rox Mid), Alisa Lawson-McKinnie (CHHS), Shelley Pulling (Rox El), Toia Robinson-Snowden (BOE), Julia Ruddy (Noble), and Robert Swaggard(BOE). Other district staff will be added as an ad-hoc basis when their expertise is needed.
OUR VISION for the LRE Cohort: The CHUH team is working to enrich our Tier 1 practices across all grade levels to ensure that equitable practices and high-quality instruction are occurring for all CH-UH students. The team will focus on building capacity while utilizing our existing resources within the district to ensure all students are growing academically, emotionally, and socially.
The team has spent time analyzing the continuum of services in each of our schools as well as mapping out our future service delivery model. LRE descriptions and an LRE flowchart have been developed to help IEP teams ensure all students have access to the general education curriculum.
The LRE Cohort team completed an LRE Consideration planning document that focused on 7 different considerations across our district: Belief Structure, Decision Making, Transition, Access to the General Education Setting, Scheduling, Training and Development, and Family and Community Engagement.
The team then rated the overall LRE perspective of each area from low, medium and high. Strengths, needs and areas of improvement were then noted for each consideration. The team then looked at one priority in each area, any barriers, and then finally identified the areas for our LRE action plan.
Our team determined that Access to the General Education Setting and Scheduling would be our two focus areas for our action plan. CH-UH’s action plan has been started.
In January all principals and secondary guidance counselors participated in a scheduling PD with Dr. Michael Rettig. On day 1, Dr. Rettig provided two PD sessions one for elementary and one for secondary. The goal of these sessions was to help our district devise effective building schedules with a focus on student success and implementation of the full continuum of services. Day 2 was spent with the elementary principals working on creating a schedule that will allow for a full-service delivery model. The feedback from administrators regarding these two sessions was outstanding. The elementary principals will reconvene at the end of the year to finalize their schedules for the 2022-2023 school year.
Part of our LRE Action plan is to continue with our co-teaching work. The District was able to bring back Ms. Savanna Flakes for our February PD day. Over 100 general eduction teachers, intervention specialists and related service providers participated in this engaging and resource full session. She provided our teams with resources and strategies to help co-planning and engage our students virtually and in-person.
There were 274 responses to our Inclusive Practice Survey that was sent out in December. 85% of those surveyed believed that students with disabilities needs were being met in the classroom. Reading comprehension was identified as the biggest obstacle for our students. Followed by written expression and then executive functioning skills. Almost 60% of those surveyed did not feel that natural proportions are being met in their classroom. Universal Design for Learning was identified as the highest area of need for professional development. The LRE Cohort Team has used this data to develop and plan their action plan. Thank you to all of those that provided feedback on the survey.
Please remember that this is a multi-year process and implementation will not begin until the fall of 2022. CH-UH employees can look forward to professional development in this area and support within any new structures that are created through our participation. Please reach out to Lindsay Baar at l_baar@chuh.org if you have any questions.
Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Updates
Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is an evidence-based three-tiered framework for improving and integrating all of the data, systems, and practices affecting student outcomes every day. It is a way to support everyone – especially students with disabilities – to create the kinds of schools where all students are successful.
PBIS isn’t a curriculum you purchase or something you learn during a one-day professional development training. It is a commitment to addressing student behavior through systems change. When it’s implemented well, students achieve improved social and academic outcomes, schools experience reduced exclusionary discipline practices, and school personnel feel more effective.
The Cleveland Heights University Heights District PBIS team includes the following team members: Jillian Alli (Student Services), Cindy Baldauf (Boulevard), Danielle Copeland (Roxboro Middle), James Dubsky (CHHS), Heather Higham (Gearity), Johnnie Lemons (CTE), Josh Luton (Roxboro Middle), Patrick McNichols (Gearity), and Paul Rusinko (Student Services). Your building TAP team is participating in three District led professional development training sessions that occur over the course of three days this school year and multiple PBIS coaching sessions with the SST to ensure each building staff is trained in PBIS and prepared for implementation and monitoring.
The District team has been meeting with each TAP team to complete the Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI) for your building. The purpose of the PBIS Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI) is to provide a valid, reliable, and efficient measure of the extent to which school personnel are applying the core features of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS). The TFI is divided into three sections (Tier 1: Universal PBIS Features; Tier 2: Targeted PBIS Features; and, Tier 3: Intensive PBIS Features) that can be used separately or in combination to assess the extent to which core features are in place. At this time we are focused on Tier 1. The results of the TFI provide TAP teams information that will assist each team to focus their efforts as they develop their action plan for your building's successful training of all staff, roll-out, and implementation of PBIS to create improved social and academic outcomes, reduce exclusionary discipline practices, and supporting school personnel to feel more effective through the implementation of the PBIS evidence based framework.
The implementation of PBIS is about capturing the work that your building has been doing and working to build your framework to support positive outcomes for all stakeholders. It is not about starting over. We look forward to continuing to provide support to each team for the full implementation of the PBIS framework.
Preschool News
CH-UH Preschool is happy to announce that we are almost completely full and are looking forward to new students who continue to join the program this Spring. The program has been proud to offer high quality in person and remote preschool learning. The teaching staff has been wonderful in our transition to the in person model and it has been really nice seeing the students back in our classrooms.
This 4th quarter, we are planning engaging experiences both in and outside of the classroom. Our related services staff has been collaborating with the classroom based teams to provide integrated speech/language, fine motor, and gross motor strategies. We will have a number of students move onto Kindergarten next year, so we will be holding transition meetings for those students who have special needs. It is important that the new teams have a good understanding of the progress students have made and what can continue to be worked on during their school age start.
Nurses
Nurses are working hard at making sure that everyone is comfortable returning back to their school settings.They are thrilled to be back and see students. In order to make sure everyone is safe they will continue to reiterate District/CDC and state guidelines. Washing hands and proper mask wearing is a must! Please review the nurse's district website on current information.
Social Workers
Gifted
Gifted teachers are working with identified students in small groups in grades k-7. More information about gifted services and self contained applications will be forthcoming once the district has a firmer decision on the covid protocols in the upcoming months.
CH-UH Educational Services Department
Website: http://www.chuh.org/EducationalServices_home.aspx
Location: 2155 Miramar Boulevard, University Heights, OH, USA
Phone: (216) 320-2033
Twitter: @edserviceschuh