Member Meetings>Fall 2007 Member Meeting Presentations
Fall Meeting
Increasing School Completion and Graduation Rates for Students with Disabilities
October 24-27, 2007
JW Marriott Buckhead
Atlanta, Georgia
The primary topical focus for our Fall Meeting was “Increasing School Completion and Graduation Rates for Students with Disabilities”. As we know, students with disabilities drop out of school at two to three times the rate of their non-disabled peers and, in urban schools, the rate is even more alarming.
Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Festus E. Obiakor is currently a professor in the Department of Exceptional Education at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. A teacher, scholar, and consultant, he has served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at a variety of universities. He has more than 100 academic publications including, It Even Happens in "Good" Schools: Responding to Cultural Diversity in Today's Classrooms and his most recent book, Multicultural Special Education: Culturally Responsive Teaching which focuses on strategies for making education better for multicultural learners with and without exceptionalities in inclusive settings.
Dr. Obiakor has been the recipient of many distinguished awards such as, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Education Outstanding Research and Scholarship Award. In 1992, he was honored with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Horace J. Traylor Minority Leadership Award. In 1995, he received the Emporia State University Presidential Award for Distinguished Service to Diversity.
A proponent of the Comprehensive Support Model, Dr. Obiakor has also focused on the issues surrounding the misidentification of black youth as behavior problems, the disproportionate representation of minority children in special education, and meeting the needs of African-American learners with exceptionalities.
Common Sense Approaches to Increasing School Completion
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District Presentations
Click here to download a pdf of the concurrent session descriptions.
- Project Search
- Atlanta Public Schools, GA
Presenter: Carolyn Harris
Atlanta Public Schools (APS) has implemented a community-based educational program designed to provide work-based educational opportunities to prospective high school seniors with disabilities. The goal of APS is to increase school completion and offer meaningful post-school employment opportunities to students with disabilities upon graduation from high school. One of Atlanta Public School’s newest initiatives is a joint venture between the school system, SunTrust Bank, and a supported employment company named Briggs & Associates. The Project Search Program at SunTrust Bank is the first community-based educational program of its kind in the metropolitan Atlanta area. Six APS high school rising seniors are chosen to participate in the program. The students report daily to SunTrust Bank in downtown Atlanta and spend the entire school day there. The program’s key components include classroom instruction, job coaching, mentoring, and ongoing progress monitoring by the APS staff, participating banking center personnel and Briggs & Associates. The Project Search successes include 100% graduation rate of all seniors participating in the program, as well as an 80% employment rate of the students.
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- Occupational Course of Study (OCS): A Pathway to a North Carolina Diploma
- Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, NC
Presenters: Val Morgan and Stacie Levi
In April 1999, the North Carolina Board of Education approved the Occupational Course of Study (OCS) as one of four courses of study a student with disabilities may complete to graduate with a high school diploma in North Carolina. The Occupational Course of Study is an outgrowth of North Carolina’s federally funded Systems Change Transition Project. The requirements for OCS are very stringent including course requirements, work hours, and parent involvement. The graduation rate of students with disabilities participating in the Occupational Course of Study in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) has increased. This session will benefit participants interested in designing appropriate diploma pathways for students with disabilities. Participants will learn how CMS aligns OCS to high school instructional programming. Service delivery, scheduling, staffing and curriculum will be discussed.
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- Transition on the Move
- Clark County School District, NV
Presenters: Karen Williams and Melissa Pegg
Clark County School District (CCSD) in Las Vegas, Nevada, is the fifth largest school district in the nation. The school district currently serves 315,000 students of which approximately 10% are children with disabilities. CCSD works with numerous community agencies in order to assist our youth in becoming as independent as possible in all life areas as they leave the safety and security of the school district and venture out into the world. This session will describe how this growing and changing district has worked to meet the diverse needs of its students with disabilities. Participants will hear about the processes involved in creating four transition programs (PACE-Program Approach Career Employment, POST- Post-secondary Opportunities for Students in Transition, JDP-Job Discovery Program & YES -Your educational Success), the ongoing support they require as well as the school district’s plans for the future. District technical assistance materials and program outcomes related to graduation rates will be shared.
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- Returning Students to In-District Programs That Are Supported Environments Thereby Increasing Graduation Rates
- Lakewood School District, NJ
Presenters: Michael Inzelbuch and Yvette Cucuro
The Lakewood New Jersey School District is the only urban district located within Ocean County, New Jersey (approx. 65 miles from New York City and 70 miles from Philadelphia, PA). Lakewood Township is populated by approximately 70,000 inhabitants with a majority of her population not availing itself of the public schools. The Lakewood School District has 4 elementary schools, 1 middle school and 1 high school with enrollment being pretty much stable at approximately 5400 of which 82% are students of racial/ethnic minority backgrounds and 75% receive free and reduced lunches. With regard to special education, the District until 2003 faced no less than 25 lawsuits on average a year filed by parents of classified students, numerous state audits, and a Corrective Action Plan issued by the State in 2000 spanning the gamut of special education issues. As of the 2006-2007 school year, the District has satisfied 23 or 24 areas of concern in the Corrective Action Plan and successfully reversed a New Jersey Department of Education report that alleged disparate treatment of classified students. This session will focus on the efforts of Lakewood to keep students with disabilities in school and graduating in a timely fashion through effective parent/guardian engagement, progressive discipline, flexible scheduling, community based educational opportunities, extra curricular offerings, and the use of innovative instructional practices and learning strategies.
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- Strive for Success: Creative Strategies to Increase Graduation Rates for Students with Severe Emotional Challenges in a Separate School Setting
- Miami-Dade County Public Schools, FL
Presenters: Angel Rodriguez, Ana San Roman, Will Gordillo, and Cathy Orlando
How do you motivate and maximize the strengths of students with the most severe emotional challenges to improve their post-school outcomes? Join the Miami-Dade team as they share the challenges and strategies that have been successfully implemented at Ruth Owens Krusé Educational Center. This is a separate day school for students with Emotional Behavioral Disorders (EBD). The school services students in grades 6-12 and has a student enrollment of 173 students. The team at Krusé have implemented an array of instructional delivery models and enhanced their transition program. Through a variety of partnerships, the boundaries of Krusé have been expanded into neighboring schools as well as into the community. Successful programs including community work programs, inclusive education, vocational education, college enrollment, job sharing, community-based instruction, and virtual schooling have enabled students with the most significant emotional disorders in this separate day school to graduate and successfully transition into life after school. Through the creative and thoughtful development of programs outside of the school, the graduation and employability rate of the students have increased. There is expected to be a 57% increase in graduation rates during the 2007-2008 school year.
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- Addressing Dropout through Positive Behavior Supports
- NDPC-SD Clemson University
Presenter: Sandra Covington-Smith
As educators and practitioners seek effective interventions to reduce dropout rates, they must focus on identifying, monitoring, and addressing effects and risk factors that lead to dropout and are easily influenced by educators (e.g., academic performance, attendance, problem behavior, school climate, and peer and adult interactions). Specifically, administrators and educators in search of empirically supported intervention strategies need to rely on studies that examine secondary indicators of dropout prevention, such as reduction in problem behavior through positive behavior supports (PBS). There is considerable research that demonstrates PBS is an effective approach for addressing those risk factors linked to dropout, including poor academic performance, problem behaviors, negative school climate, and problematic peer and adult interactions. This presentation will provide participants with an overview of the research, including examples from across state and local education agencies. A rationale for implementing PBS to address dropout related factors will be presented. Recommendations for implementation will be provided.
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- Dropout Prevention for Students with Disabilities: What the Research Tells Us
- NDPC-SD Clemson University
Presenters: Loujeania Williams Bost, PhD, Director & Sandra Covington Smith, PhD, Research Associate
The process of dropping out of school is not a new phenomenon. Dropping out is a process of disengagement that begins early, sometimes as early as elementary school. Certain groups of students are at greater risk of dropping out compared to their peers. Specifically, students with disabilities are one of the most vulnerable populations for school dropout and are twice as likely to drop out as compared to their non-disabled peers. This session will provide an overview of the research related to dropout prevention and intervention for students with disabilities, including risk and protective factors and effective intervention models. Evidence-based recommendations will be provided.
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- Using Data to Identify Dropout Related Needs
- NDPC-SD Clemson University
Presenter: Matthew Klare
The focus of this session is on the use of commonly available educational data in identifying dropout-related needs within school districts and schools. The goal of the session is to provide participants with some basic information about relevant national indicators plus some additional local data that can be employed in identifying areas of need and focusing technical assistance to support school completion among students with disabilities. Information will also be presented about ways to improve the quality of the data that drives such analyses. Finally, a general model for a data-driven analysis of school-completion data, as well as some guiding questions that can inform such an analysis in a district or school, will be shared.
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- Increasing School Completion & Graduation Rates among Students with Challenging Behaviors
- NYC Community District 75, NY
Presenters: Gary Hecht, Bill Bates, and Marta Rojo
The mission of District 75 is to promote challenging educational experiences with equity of opportunity and access that will enable all students, commensurate with their abilities, to become participants and contributing members of a multicultural society. The District supports the development and implementation of an integrated approach of instruction, merging all components of a comprehensive program (high school expectations and performance standards, content standards and program practices to accommodate for diverse alternatives) to meet the students’ Individualized Education Programs. This session will focus on two initiatives District 75 has inaugurated to ensure that students with disabilities complete school and graduate. P35M – Manhattan High School is an academic high school program for students with challenging emotional and behavioral needs. This past year, the school has focused differently on incoming ninth graders by adopting the Talent Developmental High School Model, a comprehensive school reform program from John Hopkins University. P25R – South Richmond High School. In the mid 1990’s the school district saw a need to develop different instructional options for high school students with emotional disabilities or developmental delays, and who had few or no high school credits. In response, it launched a community-based instructional program in 1996 to (1) provide the students with an alternative means of acquiring a high school diploma and (2) to give these students real life exposure to the world of work. The program has proven to be a viable option to keep students in school and improve graduation rates.
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- C.I.T.Y Connections: An Innovative Urban, Community-Based Model for 18-21 Year-Olds
- Pittsburgh Public Schools, PA
Presenters: Susan Wetzel, Anna Rhad, Millie McKito
C.I.T.Y Connections (Creating Individualized Transitions for Youth) is a program that has been established by the Pittsburgh Public Schools to provide a unique opportunity for young adults age 18-21 with moderate disabilities to continue their educational programming in an urban community-based learning and working environment outside of a traditional high school campus. The movement to a college campus program or one of five neighborhood apartment settings creates a more natural, age-appropriate environment with access to real work and real life in the community. Students are involved in an innovative and life-centered transition curriculum to address and develop the skills they need to succeed in the community, in independent living settings and on the job. As a transition program, students in C.I.T.Y Connections are given increased experience in the world of work; their families are supported in creating linkages with community agencies that will be a resource as they enter adult life. Students can also participate in extensive Travel Training and can “practice” staying away from home overnight through a partnership with ACHIEVA, a community agency that serves people with developmental disabilities. Students also participate in extensive Social Skills Instruction with the support of a Speech Therapist. The issues and resolutions to be addressed in C.I.T.Y. Connections session are useful as a model demonstration project for other professionals in urban settings seeking leadership for exemplary service delivery for students with moderate disabilities ages 18-21. Graduates of this innovative program are better prepared to take their place as participating members of the community.
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- Resources for Improving Secondary Transition Programs: Introducing the National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (NSTTAC)
- NSTTAC - University of North Carolina
Presenter: David Test
This session will provide an overview of the resources the National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (NSTTAC) has available to help school systems write high-quality, transition-driven IEPs, and identify evidence-based secondary transition practices that can improve graduation rates and postsecondary outcomes. NSTTAC is funded by the Office of Special Education Programs and our goals are to: (a) assist states with collecting, reporting, and using data to improve transition services [Performance Indicator 13: Percent of youth aged 16 and above with an IEP that includes coordinated, measurable, annual IEP goals and transition services that will reasonably enable the child to meet the post-secondary goals]; (b) generate knowledge of evidence-based secondary transition practices that provide a foundation for states to improve transition services that enhance post-school outcomes; (c) build state capacity to implement evidence-based secondary transition practices that improve post-school outcomes; and, (d) disseminate information regarding evidence-based secondary transition practices that improve post-school outcomes to state personnel, practitioners, researchers, parents, and students.
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