January 2016 Newsletter
OSD Special Education
NEWS FROM DOWNTOWN
We've been privileged to hire new staff who all started this month. Please welcome Amber, Sara, Tara, and Rebecca to our district.
Cissy, Skylar, and I are meeting with our leadership team all day on January 22 for our winter leadership retreat to do some planning for the remainder of the school year and to start planning for NEXT YEAR (yikes!). We will be using the survey data from the transition survey, looking at current caseloads and making some projections for next year's programs.
Our Special Education Leadership Team (SPELT) is meeting with Wednesday, January 20 for the afternoon to continue work on our programming offering and how best to support our students in the CORE curriculum.
Suzie Anthony has been busy working collaboratively with the technology department to clean up the process for requesting assistive technology for students in our district. She is planning on doing some training at the Feb 22nd staff development offering to present the process and offer some suggestions for how to support your students and building staff.
I have begun work on setting up a work session for our adaptive PE staff to meet with our PT and OT staff. This collaborative work will go a long ways in supporting students in a great inclusionary opportunity in our buildings.
Lots of work to do and positive changes in our future. Thanks for all that you are doing! You are definitely appreciated.
Sincerely,
Kari
CELEBRATIONS AND CHEERS!
WELCOME NEW STAFF!!
Tara Curtis OT at Jefferson, Garfield, ORLA, and Lincoln,
Rebecca McGraw SLP at Olympia HS, Centennial and Private Schools
Sara Warren DLC teacher at McKenny
Amber Yap new Resource teacher at Madison
UPCOMING PD OPPORTUNITIES
WA-AIM workshop
Registration #
Contact Jen Douglas if you have additional questions.
Monday, Jan 25, 2016, 12:30 PM
Knox Administration
Remind your paraeducators about Jan 29th PD Opportunities
Special Education Staff Development opportunity> Assistive Technology and UDL
registration # 54399
remember we do 2 sessions> 3-4 and 4-5
Monday, Feb 22, 2016, 03:00 PM
Knox Board Room
UPDATES
Restraint and Isolation Policy changes
* We are still providing the families with the 1 page version of the procedural safeguards, that has a short synopsis of the new restraint and isolation policy.
* This updated form will be in the livebinder. Please shred your current handouts, so that it references the correct policy.
* In the PWN in the "Other" section, please just put in "Parent was informed of their Procedural safeguards and Policy 3246."
Administrator Designee Role
I wanted to clarify the administrator or district designee role on the IEP team. Anyone who serves on the IEP team can serve in dual roles for two of the positions (this person must also sign in BOTH places). Additionally, the administrator/designee cannot be excused. To serve as the administrator/designee they need to be able to speak to all of the following:
- (i) qualified to provide or supervise SDI,
- (ii) be knowledgeable of general education curriculum, and
- (iii) be knowledgeable of district resources (such as programs, options, available services).
Required team members (who can serve dual roles):
- Special Education staff
- General Education teacher
- The “representative”
- An “individual who can interpret evaluation results”
Additional information on IEP team membership can be found at the following link: WAC 392-172A-03095
Progress Reports
Elementary is sent out each Semester.
Middle School is sent out each Quarter.
High School is sent out each Semester.
You should have each month accounted for when you send out your reports each time. You can choose to do this monthly or at one sitting prior to sending out.
Please avoid terms such as "same as last month", "no change", or just "75%". None of these help to share with the parent what the progress is. Your notes should provide enough information that it is evident what the actual progress is and what data you are using to justify this report.