Special Education Directors,

It has been two years since ADE conducted the 2021 Instructional Accommodations Survey, a biennial inquiry that has informed ADE of accommodation trends since 2015. The information collected from the survey assists in planning presentations and training for the field. We invite you and other personnel, including both general and special educators, related service providers, as well as support staff, who provide instruction for students with disabilities to take a few minutes to respond to this year’s survey.

2023 ADE Accommodations Survey

This survey is intended for both general education and special education teachers. To ensure a robust, statewide sample, please forward the survey link and encourage your colleagues to respond. The survey will close on June 1, 2023. For more information, please refer to this letter. We appreciate your feedback and your dedication to students.

Special Education Directors,

The Arizona Speech-Language and Hearing Association (ArSHA) will be holding its annual convention in Phoenix on March 31–April 1. There will be hundreds of Speech-Language Pathologists, Speech-Language Technicians, and Speech-Language Pathology Assistants attending this event. 

The Arizona Department of Education sponsors the public school strand at the convention to support high-quality, relevant professional learning for school-based speech personnel. This year’s sponsored topics include remediation of speech sound disorders and developmental language disorders, assistive technology (AT), augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), and supporting students who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing.

ADE/ESS will have a booth in the exhibit hall for recruiting SLPs/SLTs/SLPAs to work in Arizona’s public schools. We plan to highlight all SLP/SLT/SLPA positions that are posted on the Arizona Education Employment Board (AEBB) by March 23. The AEEB jobs board is a free, online special education job board provided by ESS. To be included in this recruitment effort, please post your speech positions on our job board by March 23. 

Prior to posting your speech position(s), you may wish to review our “Develop Effective Job Postings” guidance document.

For additional information, please email the ESS Recruitment and Retention Inbox.

DATA MANAGEMENT ALERT 

Special Education Data Updates Webinar Wednesday, March 15th   

The Exceptional Student Services Data Management team will host the next Special Education Data Updates live webinar on Wednesday, March 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        

Registration is required to attend: Register for Special Education Data Updates webinar.   

For questions, please contact ESS Data Management via email at [email protected].    

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.

ADE/ESS will have a booth in the exhibit hall to recruit special education personnel to work in Arizona’s public schools. We plan to highlight all special education positions that are posted on the Arizona Education Employment Board (AEBB). The AEEB job board is a free, online, special education job board provided by ESS. To be included in this recruitment effort, please post your vacancies as soon as possible.

Prior to posting your position(s), you may wish to review our “Develop Effective Job Postings" guidance document.

For additional information, please email the ESS Recruitment and Retention Inbox.

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

Presented by the Arizona Department of Education/Exceptional Student Services/Special Projects

Hosted by Littleton Elementary School District

Date: Friday, April 28, 2023

Time: 8:00 a.m.−3:30 p.m.

Fee: $120 (lunch on your own)

Where: Littleton Elementary School District

Address: 1600 S. 107th Ave, Avondale, AZ 85323Carlo Vialu, PT, MBA

About Carlo Vialu

Carlo served as Director of Physical Therapy for the NYC Department of Education, where he oversaw a program with over 700 PTs working in more than 1,500 schools. He is project manager of research on normative data for five mobility tests for school-aged children and co-founder of SeekFreaks.

About Peggy Morris

Peggy is an OT with 30+ years of pediatric experience in early intervention, private practice, and out-patient therapy, but most of her experience and passion is in school-based practice. She coordinates the post-professional MS and OTD programs and school-based certificate program at Tufts University. She is Board Certified in Pediatrics through the AOTA and a regular SeekFreaks contributor.

Workshop Description:

Are you ready for an easy way to write goals and monitor progress? Peggy and Carlo will walk you through setting goals that are easy to monitor and creating a monitoring tool that can help you decide whether your student is on track, if it is time to change the intervention, or if it is time to work on more challenging goals.

Stress-free monitoring begins with a well-written goal. While making a goal SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound) is a great start, how many times have we written a SMART goal that contained too many conditions to be easy to measure? So, in the morning, you will learn the three common problems with SMART goals and the four strategies to make your SMART goal easy to monitor. You will practice utilizing Apply EBP’s simple worksheet for goal-creation with the guidance of your instructors. You will then go through the three steps for the creation of an accompanying data-collection system. You will gain four tips for making this system user-friendly for different members of the team and helpful in making informed decisions. You will learn and practice how to use this data-collection system in making objective decisions about whether your student is on track or if it is time to change the intervention or goal.

Finally, you will learn two additional strategies to further elevate your goals: the Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) for more complex cases and the five steps for creating collaborative interprofessional goals.

Bring sample goals that you need to improve and case vignettes that you find challenging. There will be multiple opportunities to practice goal creation, monitoring, and decision-making as well as interactive Q&A discussions with the instructors. Leave the day with concrete strategies and the confidence to create goals and monitor them meaningfully!

Because this training has been rescheduled from an earlier date, please register using this link only:

Register for “Creating Goals that are Easy to Monitor and A Stress-Free Companion Monitoring Tool”

If you have questions regarding this training, please email Margaret Egan or email Mitch Galbraith

The College and Career Competencies (CCC’s) Project, in partnership with ADE, would like to invite you to tune into the spring professional learning series. We plan to share a variety of information and strategies that will support your understanding and implementation of assertiveness, self-efficacy, and self-regulation. 

Details for the upcoming professional learning session:

Teaching Students Respectful Communication: Understanding Assertiveness
February 21, 2023, 3:00–4:00 p.m.

Description:
Do your students have difficulties expressing themselves or asking for help when they don’t understand? Do they struggle to share their opinions during group work, or struggle to set boundaries with their peers? Effectively communicating your wants, needs, and thoughts is a skill that will benefit students in school and in college or careers as well. During this one-hour webinar, you will explore several instructional activities you might use to build and support assertiveness in your students. The instructional activities include how to help students differentiate between passive, aggressive, and assertive behaviors and how to advocate for themselves using assertive statements. Register for Teaching Students Respectful Communication.

Registration is required for all CCC’s Project Professional Learning sessions. Please register in advance for Understanding Assertiveness.

For more information or for any questions, please email Whitney Hersh.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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.

ADE/ESS is pleased to request proposals for this year’s conference. Please consider submitting presentations that represent your creative and research-based work. See the 2023 IDEA Conference Call for Papers guidelines for information on how to submit. Session proposals are due March 15, 2023.

ESS appreciates this opportunity to learn with each of you and looks forward to the year ahead. Stay informed by visiting the IDEA Conference website for conference updates, including registration information. Questions can be emailed to the IDEA Conference inbox.

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.

ADE/ESS is pleased to request proposals for this year’s conference. Please consider submitting presentations that represent your creative and research-based work. See the attached 2023 IDEA Conference Call for Papers guidelines for information on how to submit. Session proposals are due March 15, 2023.

ESS appreciates this opportunity to learn with each of you and looks forward to the year ahead. Stay informed by visiting the IDEA Conference website for conference updates, including registration information. Questions can be emailed to the IDEA Conference inbox.

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        

Registration is required to attend: Register for Special Education Data Updates webinar.   

For questions, please contact ESS Data Management via email at [email protected].    

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.

Certifications that satisfy the application requirements:

1. Early Childhood Special Education, Birth–Grade 3/Age 8
2. Mild/Moderate Disabilities, K–12
3. Moderate/Severe Disabilities, K–12
4. Visually Impaired Special Education, Birth–Grade 12
5. Hearing Impaired Special Education, Birth–Grade 12

Application materials:

• SETTA Application
• GETSET Applicaton

PEAs have an opportunity to submit an application for one candidate per program. Applications earning the highest scores in the evaluation process will be approved until the funding that is set aside for the program is depleted. Applications must be submitted no later than 5:00 p.m. on Friday, February 24, 2023.

Please note:

• Applicant must have been employed by the PEA for two full school years as of June 30, 2023.
• Applicant must agree to two full years of teaching in a special education capacity at the PEA once special education certification is achieved.
• Educational interpreters are eligible to apply for the SETTA program.
• GETSET and SETTA are tuition reimbursement programs. Potential expenses are pre-approved, and reimbursement is provided after each semester is completed and program requirements are met.

For additional information, please email the ESS Recruitment and Retention Inbox.